Cheryl Holt (37 page)

“I wanted to marry you! To honor and respect you! I’d have cared for you. Provided for you. All I expected in return was that you would come to our marital bed
as my virginal bride. Did I demand too much?”

“No.”

“Instead, you’re soiled, defiled, in the family way! You have the effrontery to beg me to wed you! To rear another man’s child as my own!” Before she was aware of his intent, he lashed out, slapping her as ferociously as he could. She lurched away, trying to evade his fury.

“Harlot!” he seethed. He slapped her again, propelling her off the chair and onto the floor.

“Oh, God! Oh, God!” she wailed over and over, clutching her injured cheek.

“So how was it, Emma, fucking your nobleman? Did you take him in your mouth? In your ass?” Each crude remark was like another savage blow. “How far were you willing to debase yourself merely to garner his illustrious attention?”

Scrambling to her knees, she strove to regain her equilibrium so that she could flee, but she was so stunned that she couldn’t react. Her muscles wouldn’t obey the most elemental command.

No one had ever hit her before, and she was thoroughly unsettled by the barbarism, terrified as to what brutality he might commit next. She endeavored to crawl away, but he grabbed her by the neck, hovering over and shaking her.

“Your story is so pathetic! So obscene! The innocent vicar’s daughter, seduced by the great lord!” He squeezed her neck, making her wince and cry out. “What did he use to tempt you? Money? Trinkets? How little did it take to entice you to spread your legs?”

“Nothing,” she spat out. “He offered me nothing.”

“He must have plighted you something. What was it? Eternal love? Undying devotion?” As though touching her had suddenly become revolting, he let go and stepped away, but not before kicking her in the ribs so
fiercely that she couldn’t catch her breath. “Well, we see what his bloody promises are worth, don’t we? Where is he, Emma? Where is your fancy
lord
now—when he’s left you in this dire predicament?”

His rage vented, he moved away, and as the prospect for further violence diminished, her physical alarm waned. She didn’t think he’d strike her again, but she couldn’t be sure. Confused, disoriented, she huddled on the rug, curled into a tiny ball. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

Harold was correct: How could John have done this to her? How could he—how could any man of conscience—have provoked the calamity then blandly sauntered off into the sunset?

He’d never penned a single note to learn how she fared. Had never sent the estate agent to check on her welfare. The better cottage he’d pledged—that she’d maintained she hadn’t wanted—had never come to fruition.

He’d trotted off to London and forgotten her.

His final day at Wakefield, he’d insisted that he be apprised if her worst fears were realized so, once her suspicions had been confirmed, she’d notified him, but he hadn’t answered her letter. If he’d harbored any lingering affection for her, wouldn’t he have responded? Even if it had been for the sole purpose of passing on a few pounds through the estate agent?

Harold had been her only hope—vague and remote though he had been. What would happen to her? To her mother and sister? She couldn’t bear to discern their fate!

Demeaned, ashamed, she couldn’t say how long she lay there with Harold watching her from across the room, but his voice yanked her out of her reverie of misery.

“Quit your groveling and get up. I’m weary of you.”

Weak and unsteady, she used the arm of the chair to haul herself to her feet. She was a mess, her nose red and mottled from her sobbing, her cheek swollen and throbbing from his beating her. Her hair was in disarray, some of the combs having scattered, and she stooped to pick them up.

“I’ll call the banns on Sunday,” he abruptly said, “but we can’t delay the full four weeks. We’ll hedge a bit, and the wedding will be two weeks from today.”

She couldn’t believe that he’d suppose she’d have him after this. “No, I won’t do it.”

“You will!” He stomped over to her, looming, frightening her again with his superior size.

“And if I refuse?”

“I will have men from the village drag you to the church, bound and gagged, where I will publicly accuse you of fornication. Then you’ll be cast out. With only the clothes on your back.”

“My neighbors would never do such a wicked thing to me!” she protested, though she wasn’t as confident as she pretended. Who could predict what others might do?

“For someone who claims to have such magnificent insight into the human condition, you really don’t understand people very well.” He laughed treacherously. “They’ll delight in your fall from grace, they’ll get a tremendous thrill on discovering that a person as pious and righteous as yourself has sinned so egregiously. Especially with the likes of Wakefield. He’s genuinely detested by all.”

That wasn’t necessarily accurate, not after she’d convinced him to cancel the evictions and defer the rents, but the boons had gone to a handful of the most destitute. What was the general opinion held by others? The Clayton family was often blamed for myriad woes,
many of which were the Claytons’ fault, and many of which were not. There was a specific element of troublemakers who were filled with resentment and ill will. Would those disgruntled souls follow Harold’s edicts just to exact revenge from John?

Harold was exuding hatred of her, and she had to query, “If you loathe me so much, why would you marry me?”

“The benefits will outweigh the detriments.” He pulled her close, mashing her side to his front. Against her hip, she could feel his erection! He was cocked as a pole! Repugnant as it sounded, he seemed to have been aroused by the fighting, his enmity spurring his desire.

She battled to get away, to create space between them, but he gripped her too tightly, and he flexed against her thigh, letting her perceive his titillated state. Offensively, he caressed her breast, trifling with the mound, kneading it, painfully pinching the nipple.

“I relish many lewd acts that transpire in the bedroom.” He leaned down to nauseatingly lick and bite her earlobe. “Being married to a whore will have its advantages.”

“Bastard,” she ground out, shuddering with distaste, and he tweaked her nipple harder.

“Of course, my charity does not extend to your demented mother. I’ll contact the insane asylums to locate a home for her, but Jane will live with us.” He kissed her neck, a sloppy, wet, sickening affair. “Now that I know what a trollop she has for an older sister, my Christian duty dictates that I oversee her upbringing. I must free her from your corrupting influence.”

“Never in a thousand years.”

He laughed again. “You’ll have a roof over your head, and your sterling reputation will remain intact. In exchange for my benevolence, you will do whatever I
say. Night after night, my darling Emma. I suggest you prepare yourself.”

Summoning her strength, she shoved him off, but she grasped that she’d slipped away from him because he’d released her. He was much larger than she; if he’d meant to further abuse her, he could have with ease.

“You’re mad!” she scoffed, distraught and terrorized.

“I will have my way in this,” he warned. “Make ready.”

She whirled away, rushing out the door and down the hall, and she hastened into the clean, fresh air and sunshine, fleeing his deviance and lunacy, then she ran home without stopping.

F
ROM
his box in the theater balcony, John stared at his surroundings and heaved a sigh.

In the two months he’d been gone from London, nothing had changed, and he was bored out of his mind. The play was typically mediocre, the same tedious people were present, the same squalid pursuits were available after the show.

Where once he’d have been energized and eager for the lengthy night and myriad amusements it held, he couldn’t muster any excitement. He’d lost his patience for the shallow characters who feigned friendship, and for the superficial recreation he’d claimed to prefer, though in all actuality, perhaps he’d hadn’t
lost
his interest in frivolous entertainment. He suspected that it had never really been there in the first place.

Amazingly, he was beginning to recognize that much of the decadence he’d embraced was abhorrent to him. He’d been on a reckless, fifteen-year quest to irritate his father, to live down to each and every one of the difficult man’s low expectations, affecting many nefarious habits and espousing those most liable to infuriate him.

As a youngster, it had been fascinating and intriguing to test his limits and break all the rules, but the behaviors he’d adopted out of pique and temper had become the norm. He couldn’t explain why or how he’d allowed himself to be lured into such a depraved existence,
but he couldn’t wallow in such a pitiable trough.

Maybe he’d finally grown up. Or maybe his passing much of the summer in the country with an irksome, sassy vicar’s daughter had forced him to take a good look at himself—where he’d been, where he was going, what he wanted for the future.

Throughout their abbreviated relationship, she’d chastised and castigated him for his excess and immoderation, had prodded him to shape up and, while he’d believed that he’d ignored her with his routine ability to shut out what he hadn’t wanted to hear, some of it had obviously penetrated.

The transformation had commenced after he’d arrived in London from Wakefield. Lonely, out of sorts, irate and disgruntled, he’d visited Georgina and her sister, intending to revel in the indecent pleasures they would have provided before he’d left on his protracted tour of Yorkshire. He’d been prepared to immerse himself in vice, to loll in whatever perversion Georgina might have devised, but in the end, he hadn’t been able to go through with it.

He’d tarried briefly, had had a second drink, had engaged in some naughty verbal exchanges with Gwenda, but somewhere between the talking and Georgina’s declaring that his bath was ready, his enthusiasm had waned. The allure he’d ordinarily found in such sordid conduct had vanished and, astonishing both the women and himself, he’d finished his whisky and exited without so much as removing a cuff link.

The preceding week, he’d discreetly returned to London, but he hadn’t notified her—or anyone else. For the full seven days, he’d been sequestered in the town house, ruminating over his stay at Wakefield, his trip to Yorkshire.

He’d spent the northern journey by himself, with too
much opportunity to reflect and stew, and he’d developed a different view. Of himself. Of the world.

Ultimately, listlessness had driven him to the theater, but as he peered around at the wealthy, lazy aristocrats who shared his social sphere, none of his earlier hobbies, or his cadre of companions, appealed in the least.

Upon his entrance, several of his cronies had joined him, and they would count on him to traipse off with them when the performance concluded. They would gamble and swill, fraternize with prostitutes, but John detested the notion of going out on the town. Their favored diversions seemed so tawdry.

He smiled, recalling Emma Fitzgerald. What would she think if she could see him now?

Since the initial period at Wakefield, when she’d sent his dubious associates running for cover, he hadn’t tossed the dice or turned the cards. He’d imbibed of spirits on the sole occasion when he’d been at Georgina’s, and he rather liked being sober. The prior decade, he’d languished in a state of constant inebriation, and he’d forgotten how it felt to have a clear head, to jump out of bed in the morning, robust and alert.

And as to his carnal comportment . . .

Well, it appeared that he was about to forsake his notoriety as a promiscuous libertine. Potential paramours crossed his path on a daily basis, but remarkably, he had no desire to partake of their charms. At the Yorkshire estate, there’d been a particularly fetching widow who’d done more than hint that she’d like to initiate an affair, but her seductive suggestions hadn’t elevated his pulse, let alone any body parts.

After having Emma as his lover, no one else compared, and he was earnestly pondering whether he was due to remain celibate for the rest of his life.

With her, he’d experienced an incalculable amount of felicity and passion, and he couldn’t work up the necessary energy to dabble with another simply for the purpose of physical release. Mere fornication seemed so pointless. If he was going to go to so much trouble, he craved more than corporeal gratification.

He wanted laughter, spontaneity, exhilaration, friendship.

Otherwise, why bother?

Smiling again, he remembered Emma as she’d been when she’d stormed into his library at Wakefield. Outraged, righteous, adamant, she’d definitely been a sight! She’d beguiled and bewitched him as he’d never dreamed possible.

He thought about her often, and it was much more than random retrospection. Perpetually, he contemplated her, speculating as to how she was managing, and if—by chance—she might ever wax nostalgic about him, although presumably, any musings that wandered his way were likely memories of contention, of ire and strife.

His fixation on her was ridiculous and futile, but he couldn’t let it go. Continually, he pothered about her, fretting over her fate, so much so that he’d picked up a pen dozens of times, inclined to inquire as to her welfare, but he’d been too much of a coward to commit words to paper. She was probably still so furious that she’d have torn any missive to shreds without reading it.

Of course, she hadn’t corresponded, either, when he’d been so positive that she would. The first thing he’d done upon coming home from Yorkshire was to examine the post, searching for her letter, and he’d been stunned to discover that nary a one had been dispatched. If she’d reached out and bridged their gap, the gesture would
have supplied him with the courage to respond, but she hadn’t, and he couldn’t blame her.

Her recollection of their liaison had to be extremely diverse from his own. Had he given her a scrap of happiness? Had there been a single moment when he hadn’t been overbearing and domineering? Regularly, she’d chided him that he was conceited, vain, too presumptuous, and he doubted that their separation would have eased her reminiscence.