Silent Surrender (3 page)

And if he did slit her throat, would Jude be there quick enough to do anything about it? By the time she screamed, it would already be too late.

Not that she wasn’t screaming, at the moment. But there could be no doubt what caused her exclamations now. Jude slumped forward, his elbows on his knees.

It might have been him in there. All those years, and her making cow eyes at him. It could have been him.

He’d banished such thoughts long ago, on the day when she’d asked for a kiss for her birthday. His heart had nearly stopped in his chest and he’d thought, stupidly let himself think, that she was in love with him, as he had grown to the love the young woman she’d become. Then he’d seen it, the sly twinkle in her eyes that proclaimed her interest was not motivated by love, but a child’s curiosity. The disappointment of his hope had hardened his resolve. He would never break the bond they had created as tutor and pupil. He would never sully it by trying to force it into a different mold. Perhaps if they had met under other circumstances, they might have loved each other. They hadn’t, and now her friendship would have to be enough for these last few days.

The sounds in the room ceased, and he breathed a grateful sigh. He counted to ten, then to ten again. He wondered if she slept, or if they…well, they couldn’t converse. The brute didn’t have any means to sign to her, and he’d visibly recoiled from the sound of her voice.

Oh, but he’d taken her money, quick enough. Shrinking from her voice, unable to speak to her, to look her in the eye and send his questions her way, he’d acted like she was some kind of feeble-minded idiot to be pitied. But he’d still gotten between her legs quick enough. He’d still accepted the arrangement.

Jude pulled in a deep breath and held it for the space of a few heartbeats. She had made her arrangement, but he would amend it, somewhat.

He said, low, beside the door, “Mr. Coal. Might I have a word?”

Even through the door, he heard the unmistakable heavy tread of the stevedore’s feet. Had he left his boots on? Jude’s lip curled in disgust. “There is a dressing gown on the chair beside the door.”

A few moments passed before Coal exited. The burgundy and navy silk of the dressing gown looked ridiculously feminine when draped over the shoulders of a man so vulgarly over-muscled. That put Jude off; it was his dressing gown.

“Yeah, mate?”

Jude tugged at the sleeves of his coat. “I am not your mate. I am your employer. Maintaining any pretense of friendship would be…unwise, on my part.”

“Ah.” Coal looked amused, as if there were some grand joke Jude did not understand. “I’m here now, boss. What do you want of me?”

“I want a little propriety. Discretion.” Jude’s face went uncomfortably hot. “It would be improper for me to broach the subject with her myself, but as her…lover, you might remind her that even in the bedroom, a certain amount of decorum is expected.”

“Remind her? How do you think I’m going to do that? I can’t—” Coal made a crude flapping of his hands.

“Please, do not do that,” Jude commanded sharply. If there was one thing he could not stomach, it was mockery, at least where Honoria was concerned. “You can speak to her. She reads lips tolerably well, if you face her and speak clearly. She was taught in that method before I took over her education. And she can speak to you, or would, if you hadn’t pulled a face at the sound of her voice.”

“Bad on my part, yeah?” Coal looked actually remorseful, though Jude supposed it was an easy enough emotion to fake. “Can you tell her to give it another try? I was shocked, is all.”

“I’ll speak with her. As for you, you may go upstairs. There’s a spare bed in the butler’s quarters. There are appropriate clothes waiting for you up there. If they need fitting, the housekeeper, Mrs. Freed, can assist in that. Dinner is served promptly at six. You will take yours in the kitchen.” Jude paused. “While you are here, you are to be clean, courteous and attentive to Miss Wallis. I haven’t a clue why she has chosen you, but she has. No matter how poor her choice, I would see her happy with the arrangement.”

“If that’s the way of it, then I’ll excuse myself.” There was something about Coal’s tone, a maddening superiority, as though he laughed at Jude and everything he represented.

Jude prided himself on his self-control most times, but he couldn’t help another attempt to bring the man to heel. “Don’t entertain any thoughts that this might be a permanent arrangement. Honoria is expected in Paris next month.”

“Paris?” Coal laughed, a short sound held back by his closed lips. “Never cared to go there, myself. Don’t worry, maestro. I won’t think of tagging along with your girl.”

“She isn’t my girl,” Jude clarified. “She’s my pupil. I will return to America, and she will go to France, and there my employment ends.”

The man only smirked maddeningly and headed up the stairs with his heavy steps.

The door to Honoria’s room remained open, just a crack. The orange firelight flickered on the thick carpet. Jude’s fingers brushed the wood. He imagined opening the door, stepping through, leaning over Honoria as she slept, waking her with kisses…

All it would take was the slightest pressure of his fingers. But he pulled his hand away. Some doors were best left unopened.

* * * * *

Honoria opened her eyes to the dim orange glow of the room bathed in the light of the dying fire. The space beside her was empty. She raised her head, looked about the room, then settled on the pillows again. She had contracted him for five days of lovemaking, not five days of sleeping beside her.

Rolling to her side, she contemplated the bath, still resting before the fire, water gone cold. Now that she knew the great secret of lovemaking, she could imagine better what it would have been like to climb astride him in that tub.

She blushed even to think of it, and her hand strayed to her thighs, still sticky with blood and his seed. She wouldn’t wash it off, not just yet, but the brandy irritated her, and she fished the sponge free, wincing as the alcohol touched her newly torn flesh. It had hurt, god, but it had hurt her. Even now she doubted her body had taken his member wholly, though he had driven deep.

At the memory, her body wept for him again, and she touched herself tentatively. Now that she had been with a man, would it be the same, to stroke her own flesh and imagine? That was the life she resigned herself to, and all she could hope for. She closed her eyes and in the floating darkness recalled the feeling of his arms around her, the crisp hair on his chest rough against her breasts. She thought of the touch of his tongue on her, his body inside hers. There had been a desperation to his restraint. He wasn’t a man used to slowness and gentleness, the tension in his muscles had told her that story as plainly as if it had been written out for her. How would he have treated her if he hadn’t been so careful?

A frisson of joyful fear and desirous anticipation drove her from the bed, her limbs heavy. She wanted to see him, to know if she’d done well. Though she would pay him for his services, she could not help but wonder if she’d pleased him.

She looked to the clock on the mantle. It was nearly time for dinner, and it seemed she was always putting someone out with her lateness. She did not wish to sit through another of Jude’s lectures. The man’s hands never tired when scolding.

Her face burned. Jude knew. That was a part of the plan she hadn’t thought through. She would have to sit across from her friend at dinner, engaged in polite, inane conversation, when all she wanted was to tell him what had happened in the privacy of her bedroom. Jude wouldn’t want to know, though, so she would have to keep her secrets to herself. That was such a lonely prospect.

She pulled the cord that would call Annie, her maid, and went to her wardrobe to select a dress for dinner. It would have to be mourning black, though she hated the look of it. She mourned for her parents, of course, but she disliked having to give such a bleak outward expression of it. Her wailing at their graveside should have been enough.

Just the memory of her sadness was enough to bring tears to her eyes, and she swiped at them angrily. She would never understand why the illness that had taken both her parents, mere hours apart, hadn’t touched her. Ruminating over it wouldn’t return them to her, nor would it change the mess they had left behind. Her father had signed away her inheritance, thinking to save her from the world by shutting her up at the Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets à Paris. If only he’d asked her if she’d needed saving.

Honoria’s maid came through the door with wide eyes. Her lips clamped in firm resolve when she saw Honoria there, and no wonder. In the looking glass, Honoria saw no outward difference in her overall appearance, but her skin was flushed, her hair a wild tangle. She lifted her chin, daring Annie to speak. The woman already thought her employer a freak of nature, so let her believe her a moral abomination as well.

As Annie helped her dress, Honoria was grateful for the maid’s silence. She always spoke too quickly to follow, and she hardly ever remembered to keep her face where it would be seen. Honoria moved automatically in response to the tugging and tying and buttoning, all the while miles from the room she stood in. She had made something of a hobby of retreating into her own head, and it had never served her so well as it had in these strange days without her parents. Sometimes she ruminated on what life would be like at the school in France. Other times she tried to see the sense in her father’s hiring of an American teacher for his daughter. She would be well-prepared for the French school, as the systems of signing were similar, one springing from another. Her teacher before Jude had been able to show her how to speak and be understood, but she had been unable to seek out other deaf people, to share her experiences with others who could understand them.

Perhaps that was why her father had decided on the school. She would earn her meals and lodgings by overseeing the young girls living at the Institution, and every month Mr. Poole, her father’s solicitor and business partner, would send her a stipend carefully meted out from her inheritance.

Just the thought of the gnome-like little man made her skin crawl. Mr. Poole had too often taken her inability to communicate as an invitation for lechery, and when that barrier had finally been removed, he’d taken to denouncing her as an idiot. After all, an idiot couldn’t be trusted if she were to tattle on a nasty old man with wandering fingers. She had misunderstood, he could say, or fabricated it all in her diseased mind. So she had never told what he’d done to her.

Now Poole ran her father’s business and held all her father’s money. Honoria would be shipped off to France, whether she wanted to go or not, because any other choice would end with her penniless in the streets. Even this house would be gone, absorbed as an asset of the business the moment Honoria crossed the channel.

Annie fixed Honoria’s hair, her jaw still tight with judgment as she jabbed pins in here and there to hold the thick coil of Honoria’s braid. She brushed out the spaniel curls that would frame Honoria’s face, scraping the brush carelessly against her cheek.

“Is something wrong, Annie?” Honoria asked, knowing full well what was wrong. She had taken a man into her room and fucked him, and likely the whole house knew about it and gossiped now.

“No, miss,” Annie said, her mouth moving clear enough for once. “You’re all set for dinner.”

“Thank you, Annie.” Honoria pressed a hand to the heavy mass of her hair at the back of her head, to be assured that it was firmly anchored, and set off for supper.

Jude waited in the dining room, at a table set for its usual two guests. Honoria stopped at the door. She looked over the settings one last time to be sure she hadn’t missed some obvious clue, but everything was there, with one notable exception. She took a deep breath through her nose and stamped her foot. Jude startled and rose from his chair. “Sorry. I not hear you,” he signed, as if his breach of etiquette were all that troubled her.

“Esau where?” she demanded, her fury growing without confirmation of Jude’s machinations. Of course he wouldn’t have her guest dining with them. It would be unseemly. It would be uncomfortable for Jude. The man was a mere dock worker, and Jude was trying so pathetically hard to keep up the illusion that Honoria was an honorable woman of means, not some poor wretch being banished to an asylum.

“He downstairs. Kitchen. Why?” A vertical wrinkle appeared over Jude’s nose as he frowned. She used to find that endearing, now it just seemed irritating. She shook her head and turned away. He followed her, she knew it just as she knew breathing. If there were an opportunity for argument, for chastisement, then Jude would not be far from it.

She blinked back tears. This was not the way she had imagined the arrangement. She didn’t need to be reminded that she was doing something unacceptable, she already knew it well enough. And though she hated to admit it, she had looked forward to seeing Esau. She’d wanted to see his expression when she entered the room. She wanted to see if he would smile at her. He had smiled in the bedroom, and the expression had looked unused. It flattered her that he bestowed something rare upon her, even when they did not know each other well.

The back hall opened to the kitchen, and a short flight of wide stairs led down to the main floor, where the long wooden preparation table had been set for the servants’ evening meal. Each of the six chairs was filled, despite the lone footman waiting upstairs to serve them at dinner. Esau sat in the footman’s place, laughing and nudging Parker, the butler. Each member of the household staff hurried to stand, looking guiltily away from Honoria. They always did that whenever Honoria took a moment to watch them. It was as if they were ashamed to be caught carrying on with their lives. Their timidity and propriety caused Honoria no small amount of frustration, as she did dearly love to watch people.

Esau was the last to look up, his gray eyes still sparkling with merriment over whatever jest he’d subjected the poor butler to. Honoria put a hand over her mouth to hide her smile, but it retreated of its own accord when Esau’s expression turned serious.