Legacy of Secrets (23 page)

“Not good, I’m afraid,” Dermot told them. “Still, I’ve no doubt if we are all confined to the house we shall manage to keep ourselves amused somehow. Until the storm blows itself out, that is.”

Shivering in the castle’s chill, Lily was wearing deep ruby velvet, high at the neck and tight at the waist, with long sleeves and a flowing skirt. She was the youngest person there and she felt desperately out of place without her parents. Until, that is, she found herself seated on Dermot’s right at dinner and he said, “You look as lovely as the Lady of Shalott.”

Her spirits rose, but they sank quickly again as he turned
away and talked only to the woman on his left through two whole courses, completely ignoring her. She could have cried, she was so crazy about him. But she knew crying was not going to do her much good. She would have to play a cleverer game than that to beat out her rivals. After all, she told herself determinedly, she was here for a purpose—to snare Dermot Hathaway. To steal him from under the noses of these predatory older women and make an honest man of him. To turn him into “Lily Molyneux’s husband.”

Dermot came to sit beside her on the sofa after dinner. She could feel the warmth of his body and smell the faint lingering scent of his cologne. His hooded eyes were looking at her in that strange way again, as though she were the only girl in the entire world he wanted to be with. And yet she was sure she was not. Yet.

“So, Lily Molyneux,” he said softly. “What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking how rude you were not to talk to me at dinner,” she retorted tartly.

“You were quite right.” He leaned closer and whispered, “And I confess, it was not easy to ignore such a young beauty. But you are a dangerous girl, Lily. Far too beautiful, and far too seductive, and far too young to be left alone with a man like me.” And then, with a mocking smile, he went to organize a game of bridge.

Lily hated card games and she refused to be a fourth. She knew they would play for hours and, left alone, she said good night and stalked sulkily to her room. Old Nanny chattered on as she helped her undress—about how cold the castle was, and how she hated the eerie howl of the wind, and how dark and gloomy the corridor was to her room, and how far it was from Lily’s—but Lily scarcely heard her. She was too busy wondering exactly what Dermot had meant by “dangerous.”

Nanny kissed Lily good night and went off to her own quarters, and Lily huddled, shivering, under the eiderdown. Her icy feet were pressed against a stone hot water bottle wrapped in a piece of red flannel and she stared into
the glowing peat fire, wondering what she could possibly do to keep Dermot’s attention for more than two minutes at a time. As she drifted off to sleep with the sound of the wind still howling in her ears, she remembered that Dermot had thought she was beautiful—and seductive. The only thing he didn’t like about her was that she was too young. So she decided she would just have to force herself to grow up quickly. Right away, in fact.

The next morning, Dermot was up and dressed and down at the stables before dawn, checking the nervous horses. He scanned the gray skies for a break in the weather. “The going’ll be wet, sir, and slippery, even if the weather does take up,” they warned him. Dermot was a restless, active man, keen for his day’s sport and he decided quickly that the men would hunt but the ladies would stay behind.

Angrily Lily watched them ride off. Deprived of her chance to show how fearless she was on a horse, she sat in the drawing room, listening to the gossip of her fellow guests, answering their polite questions about her debut and mutual friends with morose disinterest. She spent the afternoon in the library, inspecting shelves of books that looked as though they had not been opened in centuries, glancing frequently out of the window to see if the huntsmen were returning. But the afternoon drew on and still there was no sign of them. Moodily, she returned to her room. Leaning her elbows on the stone window ledge, she stared out at the distant, leaden gray sea, thinking about Dermot.

She heard someone in the corridor and, hoping it was he, she ran to the door and peeked out. A tiny maid, no more than thirteen years old, in a blue-striped frock and white linen pinafore, stared back at her. She was carrying a huge enamel jug of hot water. Lily asked where she was taking it. “Why, to Sir Dermot, m’lady,” she replied nervously.

“To Sir Dermot? Which is his room?”

“The master’s room’s in the tower, m’lady.” She pointed to the end of the corridor.

Without stopping to think, Lily grabbed the jug from her. She said quickly, “This is too heavy for you. I shall take it myself.”

“Oh, but m’lady, ye can’t do that,” the girl cried, “it’s me job—” But Lily was already striding purposefully down the corridor, slopping water from the jug all over the priceless rugs. She was overwhelmed with curiosity about Dermot’s room and what clue it might give her to the personality of its owner, and nothing was going to stop her from finding out.

The door was twice as tall as she was, and as heavy as if it were made of lead. She didn’t knock, she just pushed it cautiously open and peered in. Her blue eyes rounded with amazement as she saw the piles of silk rugs that covered the floor, dozens of them, thrown one over the other like a thick, soft, crazy patchwork quilt; and the tall windows, swagged with dark plum velvet, and the vast carved four-poster bed with a baldachin of rich ruby brocade, fringed in gold. A coverlet of wolf’s fur was flung over the bed and on a massive table along one wall was an open bottle of whiskey.

The room was empty and she breathed a sigh of relief that her spying trip would be unobserved. The soft carpets deadened her footsteps as she tiptoed across the room. The door to the dressing room was suddenly flung open. Dermot was standing there, half naked, a glass of whiskey raised to his lips. She stared, like a mesmerized rabbit, at his naked chest, at his loins where the wet riding britches he was still wearing fitted taut as a second skin, at his massive shoulders and powerful thighs. She thought she might faint from the sheer masculine scent of him, of sweat and cologne and whiskey.

Dermot stared back at her, unsmiling. He had had a long, hard day’s hunting, the going had been treacherous and the wind had been a bastard, whipping in their faces and shifting the scent so the hounds hadn’t known where
they were. The ice on the wind had caused them to stop for frequent nips from their flasks; he had eaten nothing since their early breakfast, and he had been drinking steadily all day. He was more than half drunk and the whiskey hitting his empty belly crept like liquid fire through his veins.

He said nothing, watching Lily taking him in from head to toe. He saw her blue eyes darken and he knew what she was feeling. A smile lurked at the corners of his mouth. The little bitch was in heat for him, and he knew it. He took the enamel jug from her nervous fingers and set it down on the washstand. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her.

His mouth was hot on hers and his kiss too fierce, but Lily wanted more of it. He hadn’t been immune to her after all. He loved her. She was drowning in his arms, lost in the new pleasure of her own body.

He ran his hands down her back and along her buttocks, pressing her urgently against him, shocking her back to her senses. She put her hands on his chest, pushing him away, but he merely picked her up and carried her across to the bed.

“No,” she cried, terrified. “Oh, no … I didn’t mean to come here, I only brought the water for you …” She slid from the bed to the floor and he forced her back onto the carpets.

“You want to be like the woman you saw me with,” he whispered in her ear. “Of course you do, I saw the way you stared at her, envying her nakedness, envying that she was with me … you little bitch, you’ve been asking for this long enough. And now you’ll get it. Oh, and you’ll love it, your sort always does. I can tell them a mile away, smell them even, feel the heat of them …”

She was pinned beneath his weight as he struggled with her dress, and she screamed. He laughed. “There’s no one to hear,” he said. “This is my ivory tower. Nobody comes here, not even the servants, without being summoned. It’s just you and me, Lily, you and me …”

He bent and bit her breast and she screamed again, this
time in pain. Oh God, oh God, what am I doing here, she thought frantically, as he forced her legs apart with his knee. He flung back her skirts and she began to cry as he pulled at her undergarments. “No … oh no, please, don’t. If you love me, don’t,” she whispered.

“Love?” He laughed again, bearing down on her. Oh God, Lily thought, remembering how she had giggled over the horses and the dogs in the stable yard…. oh God, this was far, far worse and it was something that shouldn’t be happening. It was terrible. It was the worst thing that she could ever do.

She screamed with pain and fear, still fighting him as he forced himself into her. Dermot smiled. The little virgin tease had finally got what was coming to her. He flung back his head, groaning, his face contorted in the agony of fulfillment. And Lily lay still beneath him, as though she were dead.

He got up and walked back into the dressing room. When he returned he was wearing a silk robe and his hair was brushed smooth. He poured himself another glass of whiskey and sat on the edge of the bed. He stared thoughtfully at her. She was lying facedown, crying, great shuddering sobs that threatened to choke her. He sighed regretfully. If he had not been so drunk and she had not been so provocative, he would not have touched her. But she had come to his room at just the wrong moment, and she had offered herself to the wrong man. Now he would have to get her out of here and make sure no one ever knew. Especially her father.

“Get up, Lily,” he said after a while.

But she just turned her face into the soft silken Oriental rug and wept.

“Get up, I said.”

His voice was soft but there was a menacing tone to it, and Lily glanced apprehensively up at him. He walked across to her and took her hand, pulling her to her feet. She sagged against him, and he sat her on the edge of the
bed and put the glass to her lips, forcing whiskey down her throat.

She gagged as the liquor burned its way down and he said irritably, “For God’s sake don’t be sick in here. Listen to me. You will not come down to dinner tonight. You will stay in your room and I shall have a tray sent up to you.”

Lily just stared at him. Her eyes were wide with shock. He was acting as though nothing were wrong, as though it was all normal….

She began to scream hysterically and he slapped her face hard. Her head snapped back and a red welt burned on her cheek. She stared at him, stunned into silence.

“Let us get this straight, Lily,” he said. “You are a very knowledgeable young woman. Behind those innocent blue eyes lie a thousand unknown sins, and this will only be one of them. You knew why you came here. You’ve been haunting me for weeks, begging for me to touch you. You can’t deny it.”

“It’s not true,” she cried, shocked. “I only wanted—”

“To flirt with me, Lily? Oh, come now, you know that’s not true. You got what you wanted, and, for the moment, so did I. And that’s where it stays. You will go home tomorrow and we shall never see each other again.”

Lily wasn’t really sure of the facts of life, but she understood enough to know that what had happened was what married people did, and now marriage was her only answer, and her only salvation. “But you’ll have to marry me,” she cried.

His hand shot out again and this time he grabbed her by the throat. His face was livid with anger. “If that was your little game, my dear Lily, then you are very much mistaken. And if you think you can go home crying ‘rape,’ then let me inform you that if you ever tell anyone about this—anyone at all—then I shall kill you, Lily Molyneux.”

Taking her arm, he dragged her, stumbling, across the room. He opened the door and looked up and down the corridor. It was empty. Lily collapsed in a sudden heap at
his feet. He picked her up and carried her to her room and flung her impatiently onto the bed.

“I shall make arrangements for you to leave tomorrow,” he said, looking at her with brutal indifference. “You can give my apologies to your parents and tell them the weather is too bad for hunting, and that you are coming down with a fever.”

He walked out the door without a backward glance and Lily lay on the bed, staring after him, too shocked even to cry out.

After a while she stood up and dragged off her clothes. She stared, horrified, at her stained garments. Nanny mustn’t see, she mustn’t know. Nobody must ever know. She would hide all the evidence. She would lie and pretend, even to herself, that nothing had happened, and then, miraculously, it would be all right again. Surely it would. It must.
It must.

Her body throbbed with pain and she was trembling from shock. She put on her warm woolen robe and rang for hot water. She waited, shivering, too numb to cry, for the maid to fill the bath in front of the fire, and then she sank into the water, praying for its heat to wash the feel and the smell and all the cruel evidence of Dermot Hathaway’s body from her, so that she might be clean again. But even she, innocent as she was, knew it was not possible. She would never be the same again.

She had never even heard the word “rape,” but she knew the very worst thing that could happen to a woman had happened to her. It was unthinkable. It was something that was never mentioned in polite society, not even within the family.

She thought desperately that she could never tell her mother, and certainly not her father. And Dermot Hathaway would not make an honest woman of her, but anyway now she hated him as passionately as she had admired him earlier. And besides, she was afraid of him. She shivered as she remembered his threat to kill her. She just wanted to
get away, to go home to Ardnavarna, where she would be safe.

She arrived home unexpectedly the following day, driving through one of the worst storms of the decade, and her mother immediately exclaimed how pale she looked. She put a hand to Lily’s brow and felt her fever, and she ordered her straight to bed. She considered sending for the doctor, but the terrified Lily said she didn’t want to see the doctor and ran sobbing to her room.