As You Are (16 page)

Layton looked down at him. “You are. More than you know. Come on, Edmund. I’ll sneak you into Havenworth before Caroline realizes you’re there.”

Corbin mouthed a thank you as Edmund wandered in Layton’s direction. “Alice, dear.” She was still crying in his arms. “We are going back to my house. Will you let Jason hold you?”

“Is Jason bad?” Alice asked, her words broken by her continued sobs.

“No. I promise you he is not bad. He is my brother.”

Alice nodded and sniffled. Her trust touched him, especially in light of all he’d just seen. He handed Alice over to Jason, hoping their resemblance would put her at ease. She went willingly, though her tears continued.

Corbin turned to Clara. Tears pooled in her eyes, though they didn’t fall. She, no doubt, held them back with a willpower she had been forced to call upon before.

He pulled her back into his arms and held her as she shuddered. It was improper, he knew, to hold her so closely when no one else remained in the room. But he didn’t care. She needed him. And he needed her, needed to know she was safe and comforted.

“You didn’t leave me,” she whispered.

“Of course I didn’t, Clara. Of course I didn’t.” Corbin held fast to her. “Everything will all . . . Everything will be fine.”

“But Corbin”—her voice faltered—“they will put me in jail.”

“No.”

“I did what he said I did.” She looked up at him, fear obvious in her eyes, tears threatening to fall at any moment. “He can prove that I did.”

Not two steps out of the carriage after arriving at Havenworth, Edmund’s legs seemed to give out. Clara rushed to his side, but Corbin was there in an instant. What would she have done throughout this ordeal without him? she thought. Corbin lifted the boy from the steps and carried him inside.

“He’s going to hurt Aunt Clara,” Edmund muttered, his words thick and slurred from exhaustion.

“No, he will not,” Corbin said.

Clara stood still, thoughts of Mr. Bentford filling her mind. How had he found her? How would they escape this time?

Edmund had already collapsed. Alice was whimpering for Mister. Clara did not know how much longer she could hold back her tears.
I will not cry
, she told herself over and over.
I have to be strong.

But again and again came the awful truth. Mr. Robert Bentford had found her, and she didn’t know how she would escape.

“Come up to the library, Mrs. Bentford.” Layton had come up behind her, slipping a hand under her elbow to assist her. She didn’t cringe as she would have with every man she’d known before meeting Corbin’s family. Something about these Jonquils was different. “A few more minutes of your time and then you can rest,” he promised.

“Thank you,” she said softly in reply.

Ahead of them, Crispin and Jason were deep in conversation, leading the way up the stairs to Corbin’s library. Crispin looked back at one point and nodded reassuringly at her.

You are more a Jonquil than you know
, Layton had said to Edmund. Did he realize how much she’d come to wish she were a part of this family? They were watching over her and her children, and for the first time in years, possibly in the course of her entire life, she felt, at least momentarily, safe.

But Mr. Bentford was in Grompton. He was there. Nearby. He had the power to destroy her and this new life she had made for herself.

“Why don’t you sit a moment, Mrs. Bentford?” Layton suggested, leading her to a settee near the fireplace. “Corbin will want to be here, and I think Lady Marion needs to be as well.”

“Your wife?” Clara asked, unsure why she was being involved.

“You will understand soon enough.” He offered no further explanation.

Clara sat on the settee and took several deep breaths. Layton had joined Jason and Crispin at the desk. She didn’t attempt to overhear their conversation. She did her utmost not to think of anything at all. She closed her eyes and waited, willing her tears to dry.

Around her, muffled conversations continued. She heard the door open and close more than once, footsteps crossing the room.

“She is spent, Jason.” Clara recognized the dowager countess’s voice. “Couldn’t you allow her to sleep and discuss this in the morning?”

“Time is our most difficult obstacle right now, Mater. Mrs. Bentford can sleep all she wishes tomorrow, but we need to begin addressing this tonight.”

“You make this sound very serious.”

Clara didn’t like the worry she heard in the dowager’s voice.

“If Mr. Bentford pushes these charges, if he has any proof, this could be quite serious.”

“I recognize that tone, Jason,” the dowager countess said. “You are all barrister right now. I will leave you to it.”

Clara heard the dowager leave the room.

“Mrs. Bentford?” That was Jason’s voice.

Clara opened her eyes. They had all assembled. Layton and his wife, Lady Marion. Crispin. Jason. Corbin had returned as well. Clara felt herself redden. Had she actually thrown herself at him in the cottage? She had been overwhelmed with relief when he’d come through the door. She was certain no other person would have been as welcome at that moment as he had been.

He’d held her every bit as gently as she’d seen him hold Alice. It was a novel and wonderful experience. Such comfort his embrace had given her in that moment! She had felt safe despite being surrounded by threats and danger.

Now he was keeping his distance once more. She bit down her disappointment.

“I need to ask you a few questions,” Jason said.

Clara nodded, recognizing, as the dowager had, the lawyer tone in his voice. She forced her mind to the present and listened.

“Mr. Bentford claims you beat him with a fire poker. Is that accurate?”

Clara clasped her hands in her lap. “Yes.”

“Were you defending yourself?”

“Not precisely.” She clutched her fingers more tightly. “He hadn’t done anything yet. That time.”

“What do you mean by ‘that time’?”

Clara glanced at Corbin, then around the room. There were so many gentlemen she hardly knew. They were helping her, she reminded herself. She needed them to.

Everyone seemed to await her response. Clara really didn’t want to talk about those horrible months after the younger Mr. Bentford had descended on Bentford Manor. She’d been attempting to forget everything about that place, about the brothers who’d lived there.

Clara took a deep breath. She would have to explain far more than the night she committed her “crime.” “Mr. Bentford inherited Bentford Manor after the death of his brother, to whom I was married.” Another breath was necessary. “He, however, did not come to reside there for nearly a year after inheriting. There is no dower house at Bentford Manor, only a wing set aside for the use of the family widows. Mr. Bentford, the one who was at Ivy Cottage today, made that arrangement . . . difficult for me.”

“Difficult in what way?” Jason pressed.

Clara fidgeted, glancing around at the room full of people who only days earlier had been strangers to her. She still hardly knew them. And Corbin’s opinion of her had only recently seemed to grow approving. There’d been a softening there lately. Would he turn on her now?

“Is this entirely necessary, Jason?” Corbin broke his silence for the first time since entering the library.

“It is excessively necessary.”

She would have to tell them everything. Clara could no longer remain seated, a rush of agitated energy surging through her.

“My husband was a violent man,” she said. “Alice, thank the heavens, wasn’t old enough when he died to remember him. I know Edmund works very hard not to. The late Mr. Bentford once broke Edmund’s arm in a fit of rage.” Her heart still thudded at that horrible memory. “Most of his outbursts, though, were directed at me. I don’t think a single day went by when he didn’t strike me, often repeatedly. I thought when he passed we would finally have peace. But I discovered his brother is cut from the same cloth.”

She took as deep a breath as her tense lungs would allow. “Once he established himself at Bentford Manor, we were in the same horrible state we were before. I did all I could to protect the children from his wrath, but what could I do? There was nowhere to hide, no true means of defending myself. I consulted a solicitor in a nearby town, but he regretfully informed me that the law does very little to protect a woman from the anger of her male relatives.”

Clara glanced at Jason and saw confirmation in his face.

“Is there more?” Jason seemed to sense there was.

She nodded slowly. This was the more difficult part.

“Mr. Bentford became increasingly familiar.” Clara wrung her hands as she paced. “He took it as his right to use my Christian name, to take my hand whenever he chose, to be far more affectionate and pointed in his regard. I attempted to discourage him, which only made him angrier. I never knew if my encounters with him would involve a beating or an inappropriate display of affection or both.”

Clara felt ill at the retelling, reliving in her mind details she was leaving out of her explanation. Those encounters had made Mr. Finley all the more unbearable. She knew all too well what scurrilous men were capable of.

“What direction did his attentions take?” Jason asked.

“Jason—” Corbin objected.

“We must prove that she had reason to strike at him,” Jason cut him off. “I am sorry, Mrs. Bentford, but it is necessary.”

“I understand.” Clara lowered herself onto the settee once more. “He eventually abandoned all semblance of propriety, speaking in ways that were not only uncomfortable but threatening. My continued rejections only increased his violence toward myself and the children. I threatened to speak to the squire, but Mr. Bentford was adamant that my word would never carry the weight his would. The law would, he warned, tell me to go back to the keeping of my male relatives and be grateful they were willing to let me stay on.”

Clara swallowed back a sudden surge of bile. She could not look up, couldn’t bear to see what might be written on the faces of those who had offered to be her champions.

“I tried to leave with the children once, but we were found out. He beat Edmund and Alice, beat them badly. I was too afraid to try again. He said that should I so much as make the attempt, he would have guardianship of Alice taken from me and would send her to some cousin to be raised.”

She took a shaky breath. Those months with her brother-in-law had been, by far, the worst of her life.

“I discovered through the help of a sympathetic and discreet man of business that so long as I was living at Bentford Manor, the estate received a stipend for my care, though we were living very much like paupers. Mr. Bentford was pocketing that money and, if the society column in the papers was to be believed, was using it to fund a gambling addiction. He needed us to remain because he needed the money. The beatings and the unwelcome attentions were all his way of terrifying me so much that I would be too afraid to leave.”

She felt a warm tear slide down her cheek. She’d tried so hard to keep her tears at bay all evening. She swiped at the moisture on her face.

“He underestimated, however, my unwillingness to see the children continually beaten and tormented. I secured Ivy Cottage through this same man of business, of whom Mr. Bentford was not aware, and secretly packed the necessities for one more attempt at leaving.”

Clara closed her eyes tightly to force back the tears that threatened. She was determined to finish her telling. She heard a rustle of skirts, then felt the settee shift beside her. Clara glanced over. Lady Marion sat next to her. Clara felt the young lady’s arm wrap around her shoulders. A tear slipped out at that simple gesture. She never permitted herself to cry but couldn’t seem to prevent herself now. She was entirely unraveling.

“We very nearly slipped out before Mr. Bentford came looking for us.” Clara pressed on. “Suzie was taking the children to the carriage I had hired from a nearby inn, and I was gathering the last of our things. I heard Mr. Bentford in the moments before he entered my bedchamber. I grabbed the fire poker and hid beside the clothespress. He found me rather easily, but before he had a chance to say much more than good evening, I hit him. I hit him as hard as I could.”

Lady Marion’s arm squeezed her more tightly.

“That was when I saw his valet in the doorway. His valet is unfailingly loyal to Mr. Bentford and holds me in extreme dislike. He would, I am certain, testify that Mr. Bentford had done nothing upon entering to justify my attack.”

“The law would place almost no confidence in your testimony if it contradicts his,” Jason said.

“I fled the house.” Clara rushed through the rest of the telling. “Mr. Bentford’s valet shouted at me that I would hang for what I’d done. That was when we came to Ivy Cottage. We have been hiding from him ever since. And until this evening, I thought we’d managed to find a corner of the world quiet enough that he wouldn’t look for us here. But he has, and now we’ll never be safe from him again.”

The room was silent. Clara wiped at a tear streaming down the side of her nose. Would they abandon her now? Did they even believe her?

“With a witness and, no doubt, the word of the local physician regarding his injuries, Mr. Bentford has a case,” Jason said. “The penalty for assaulting a gentleman is steep. Transportation, if she is lucky.”

Clara’s shoulders sagged.

“You’ll forgive me if this sounds impertinent.” Lady Marion seemed to address the entire room at once. “If Mr. Bentford needs Mrs. Bentford to return home with him so he can secure a portion of her jointure, what benefit can he possibly expect at having her transported or imprisoned?”

“Not impertinent at all, dearest,” Layton answered. “An insightful question, actually.”

Clara’s spinning mind hadn’t allowed her to consider that possibility yet.

Jason’s brow furrowed in deep contemplation. “I would have to look at the marriage settlement to know for certain, but I would guess that either a criminal conviction will strip Mrs. Bentford of her income, keeping all of it for the estate, or Mr. Bentford plans to offer to take her back into the family home rather than subject her and, I am certain he will insist, the family name to the degradation of transportation or imprisonment or worse.”