Kitty Little (9 page)

Once, while attending an anniversary ball of an old friend, Magnus had discovered her dancing alone in the conservatory with a young captain.

‘What is this?’ The ominous quiet of his voice had so chilled her, she could only stare at him, unspeaking. Even her valiant partner had deemed it wise to hold his tongue.

Magnus had taken her arm in an iron grip and propelled her out into the garden in order to give full vent to his feelings on her questionable behaviour. Charlotte, desperately struggling to keep pace with his long strides had been quite out of breath by the time she managed to wrench herself free from his grip. ‘For pity’s sake, what’s up with you? We were doing nowt wrong, only dancing.’

‘Doing nothing wrong. You were doing
nothing
wrong.’

‘Well then, why make such a fuss?’

He’d swallowed an explosion of rage. ‘Do please watch your grammar, Charlotte. How many times have I told you? As for this latest charade, I do
not
recall giving you permission to disport yourself so openly with that fop,’ referring to Julian Webster, the son of one of his fiercest competitors at the race track.

‘Julian is a poppet and wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ Charlotte had retorted, carefully rounding her vowels. ‘And it were that hot in the ballroom.’

‘
Was
too hot.’

‘Like I said, too hot by ‘alf.’

‘Damn you, woman, you’ll do as I say, understand?’ Then he’d flung her to the ground, ripping her gown in the process. ‘You’ll offer favours to no man unless I say you may.
Is that quite clear?
I’ll tell you with whom and when. Don’t ever forget that
I
am in control. If you play the slut with me, woman, you’ll be back where you came from, in the gutter.’

‘You’re me bloody ‘usband, not me keeper!’ she’d unwisely responded, some imp of madness making her hit out at him, partly caused by the folly of youth and partly from the confidence she held in her own charms. She was soon to regret such recklessness.

He’d taken her home, stripped the clothes from her back and whipped her, using the silken cord from his tartan dressing gown. Afterwards, as she sat sobbing, terrified of moving in case she exacerbated the pain in her back, he carefully explained how the punishment was not out of lack of love on his part, but meant only to cure her of disobedience, in particular her persistent waywardness.

‘Not forgetting me bad grammar,’ she’d obstinately yelled back at him, receiving another leathering for her cheek.

Later, as she tenderly bathed her raw skin, Charlotte had noted with a mixture of relief and fear, that he’d been clever enough not to break it, which meant that if he could get away with it once, he could do so again. Nevertheless the bruising took weeks to heal, serving as a spur to greater obedience, and causing her to work all the harder at being the wife Magnus demanded.

In this way, the peculiar nature of their relationship continued to flourish. He as the master and she the slave. Charlotte learned to simper and smile and play her charms to his will. And whenever Magnus judged that his wife had not quite put her heart into a prescribed task, thereby failing to procure whatever prize he’d set his heart on, he would smile, almost with pleasure. ‘Now what would you consider to be a suitable chastisement?’

Charlotte would shake her head in mute distress, for some of these punishments proved to be alarmingly imaginative.

He might lock her in a spider-infested closet for hours till she was ready to agree to anything just to be released from the crawling darkness, or twist her arm until she wanted to scream from the pain but dare not because he would beat her all the harder if the servants heard anything untoward. He might slap her till her head spun, pinch her till she was covered in purple bruises, or place tiny fierce bites all over her naked body. On one occasion he even made her crawl upon her knees, licking up crumbs from around his feet, begging his mercy for some supposed indiscretion, before he kicked her senseless as if she were a dog.

So now when he asked her to perform an intimate act with a man of his choosing, Charlotte was only too aware of the futility of argument. She had learned long since that it was far easier, and infinitely less painful to take the easy option of obedience. For the moment.

Until her plans for escape were all carefully in place.

Besides, she consoled herself, young Tommy Bickerstaff possessed a lean fit body hardened by long hours spent in the saddle. It could be worse. He might have chosen fat old Hugo Johnson to test her charms instead.

Turning from the window, she bestowed upon Magnus what passed for a smile, before quietly withdrawing from his presence to return to her ardent lover and carry out her husband’s wishes to the letter, as a good wife should.

The stallion was delivered the very next day, tied up with a scarlet bow and a note saying that although it was merely a loan and the horse couldn’t be offered as a gift, she was welcome to ride him whenever she so wished.

‘That’ll do for a first effort. You clearly pleased our young lord,’ Magnus informed her with some degree of satisfaction. ‘Though an outright gift would’ve been better. You must try harder next time.’

‘For Goodness’ sake, who’d be daft enough to give away a prime stallion for one good...’

‘
Don’t
say another word. A lady never refers to the subject directly.’

Charlotte never did get to ride the animal, much to her relief, since horses were far outside her breadth of knowledge, but Magnus made ample use of the time the stallion was in their possession, even to the extent of bribing the groom who brought him each day.

After this success, Magnus carefully considered every male of his acquaintance, weighing up the size of their wealth and possessions and what they might possibly be prepared to part with, in return for a little dalliance with his enchanting wife.

His behaviour only deepened her loathing to a dangerous level, yet there seemed to be nothing she could do about it. She had no money and no home besides this one, and Charlotte certainly had no intention of returning to the “gutter”, as he so charmingly termed it.

So the “game” went on, exactly as Magnus wished it to and Charlotte very nearly lost heart, unable to find the solution she sought; forced to obediently comply with his every whim. One day though, she knew her time would come. In the meantime she made a private vow that although she would play the whore, if that was what he wished, she’d never permit Magnus to hit her again

Magnus Gilpin chose to repeat his bullying when he was seated astride
Rude Awakening
, cantering through the woods with Charlotte beside him on her more docile mare.

It was one of those magical mornings when an early sun promised to quickly disperse skeins of mist that still clung to the hill tops, and for a moment the sheer glory of it, and the excitement of the ride, filled her with a rare happiness.

But despite her best efforts Charlotte was a poor rider, only struggling to learn in order to pacify him. As they broke out of the woods and set the horses to a quiet amble along a track which threaded its way through dew-spangled meadows, her cheeks glowed from the exercise, highlighting her loveliness to a breathtaking beauty.
 

They began to squabble over which dress she should wear at the dinner party that evening. Charlotte, as ever, favouring bright colours while Magnus preferred a more tasteful shade. Then they disagreed on who was should sit where. Charlotte suggested Julian Webster be seated next to her while Magnus reiterated that it be James Wisheart, a new neighbour who’d taken possession of the land adjoining their own.
 

‘I wish you to be nice to him Lottie,’ he instructed, his voice jerking slightly with the rhythm of the stallion’s easy movement. ‘It could prove highly beneficial to secure the friendship of such a wealthy man.’

‘To hell with that. I’m done playing the whore for you.’ It was then that she told him she was pregnant. The words flew from her mouth without thought or planning. Instead of expressing pleasure and pride in the fact she was to produce an heir to his fortune, Magnus roared, ‘
whose bastard is it
?’

Charlotte met his furious gaze with a fine temper of her own. ‘If it’s impossible to tell, then you’ve only yourself to blame.’ Drumming her heels into the mare’s flanks, she urged it to spurt forward into a canter.

‘
Whore!’
he shouted after her, his voice catching on the wind. ‘I timed your performances so as to avoid any such confusion. If you’ve fallen, it must be because you’ve taken a lover on your own account.’

His arrogant assurance that he could control even the natural order of her own body, of life itself, suddenly seemed highly amusing and she threw back her head and laughed; hysterical, reckless laughter which in turn excited the horse to increase its pace still further. She could hear the thundering hooves of
Rude Awakening
rapidly overtaking her. ‘P’raps the poor little blighter’s a bleedin’ lord. That’d be summat, eh?’ she yelled back at him.

‘
You damned slut!
You’ll get rid of it. D’you hear? I’ll not have another man’s by-blow.
I’ll
decide when I’m ready for you to breed.’

Tears streamed down her cheeks though whether caused by the misery or her situation, the reckless ride or her own mad laughter, she couldn’t have rightly said. ‘What d’you reckon I am? One of your brood mares?’

His instant response was to lash out with his riding crop, almost as a reflex action. The whip caught her full across her back and Charlotte jerked violently with the sting of it, ever sensitive on that part of her body which had already suffered ill treatment at his hand. He was screaming at her, demented with rage, lifting his arm to strike her again. Perhaps because she was such a poor rider, unsure of her seat, or because the horses, spooked by his violent outburst had shifted their pace from a steady canter to a madcap gallop but instead of taking the punishment, as expected, Charlotte reached out with one gloved hand and, more by good luck than management, grasped the thong of the whip. Whatever the reason and, terrified of falling beneath the hooves of
Rude Awakening
, she held on, heaved on it as hard as she could without even considering the consequences.
 

Or so she afterwards claimed.

The action caught him off guard and, unable to hold his balance at the speed he was then moving, lurched sideways in his seat. Ahead of them reared a fence and beyond that a ditch.
Rude Awakening
, feeling the loss of control, missed its footing and panicked. Snorting and pawing with fright it braked hard and shied. Magnus was tossed like a cork right over the fence.

Charlotte too fell to the ground, still shaking with hysteria, at least until the pains started and knifed her in two. Even so, one glance at the crumpled body of her husband told her that losing this child was the least of her worries.

The room stank of stale sweat, camphorated oil, and other less edifying scents. Charlotte gazed bleakly upon the still form of the man lying in the bed and knew a loathing that increased with each passing day. There were no “games” now, no card parties, no dinner parties nor any hope of dalliance let alone dances with handsome young captains in sweet-scented conservatories. Now there was only the stench of sickness and raw hatred.

She’d lost the baby, had been told there may be no further pregnancies because of complications. Sitting by his bed, Charlotte knew there was little danger of such a thing happening in any case. She shed no tears for her husband, nor felt any sense of guilt. Why should she? It’d been he who had instigated the accident, by his own hand, with a reckless violence from which she’d a right to defend herself. Being paralysed hadn’t altered his nature one scrap. He was still a brute. Always had been, always would be.

Only when he slept did she find any peace, for the house was still ruled by his iron will. He would belittle her with cruel words, order his affairs in a loud, demanding voice; still play the bully. He blamed her entirely for the state he was in. Only the two of them were aware of her part in the “accident” and he held this knowledge over her like a threat, using it to make her toe the line. So long as she did exactly as he ordered, no one else would learn the truth. Otherwise, as he constantly warned her, she could be charged with attempted murder. Crazy as this seemed, in a way it must be true, for Charlotte had desperately wanted him to die that day and Magnus knew it.

Her face twisted with hatred at his power over her, even now when that strong handsome body had been broken. She turned away and without a backward glance at the prone figure in the high brass bed, strode from the room. Out on the landing Charlotte stood for a moment with her back to the bedroom door, breathing hard until the hammering of her heart, which a visit to the sick room so often brought on, gradually subsided and she had herself under control again.

She heard the housekeeper’s step upon the stairs, bringing his supper no doubt. Charlotte straightened her slumped body and managed a smile. ‘Good evening Mrs Pursey.’

‘Madam.’ The woman scanned the slender robed figure with the kind of insolent glance which plainly stated what she thought of this common upstart who had married her master and was no better than she should be. Holding the loaded tray high, Magnus’s appetite having increased rather than abated as a result of his handicap, she waited to be allowed entry into the sick room. Charlotte didn’t move an inch.