Regency Innocents (57 page)

‘Oh, dear. Perhaps I had better go after her, and keep her company for a while.'

‘Oh, yes, dear, would you? I must confess, I am at
my wits' end with her. Why, at one time, just being at an event like this would have …' She trailed away, shaking her head.

Deborah knew exactly what it would have meant, at one time, to her ambitious friend to be moving in such exalted circles and dancing with an earl.

She got right to the end of the terrace before she detected the faint sound of sobbing coming from beyond the flight of steps that led into a sunken garden. As she got further from the house, and the music from the ballroom grew fainter, she became increasingly concerned by the way her friend seemed to have finally broken under the strain, even hiccupping out the odd words between sobs. But when she finally found her, rather than hurrying to her side and wrapping her arms about her, she froze.

For Susannah was not alone.

And the man who was with her, who had just pulled her into his arms so that her sobs were muffled against his chest, was Robert.

‘Hush, now,' he said as Deborah skidded to a halt, not five feet away from them.

It was not seeing her husband put his arm about Susannah's shoulders that shocked her so much. It was the fact that
she
had overcome her revulsion enough to let him hold her. That she was clutching at his shirt front, raising her tear-stained face to his, and confessing,

‘I have made such a terrible mistake!'

‘Not so great a one as I have,' replied Robert, looking ruefully down into her beautiful face.

D
eborah walked back into the ballroom, feeling as though she was encased in ice. She never could remember the rest of that evening's events. She supposed she must have mechanically executed the steps of the dances she had promised to all those faceless men who came to claim her, but all she could see was her husband, telling the woman he loved that he had made a terrible mistake.

He meant in not asking Susannah to marry him, of course. If only he had gone to her, and explained that a great fortune could be hers, this ball could have been given in her honour. She would have become a member of the Earl of Walton's family, and gone shopping in Bond Street with a countess.

For such compensation, Susannah would have been well able to overcome her revulsion at Robert's injuries. She must be sorry now she had ever let that revulsion show. Yes, her mistake had been spurning Robert's devotion.

She did not like to think what the next step would be for the ill-fated lovers now they had reached an understanding. Whatever they chose to do, there would be an almighty scandal. Robert would come out of it none the worse, of course. He had married for convenience. Nobody would expect him to stay faithful to his wife. And if the most beautiful débutante of the Season chose to throw herself at him, who would blame him for taking what was on offer? Other men would just chuckle, and call him a sly dog, but all doors would remain open to him.

But Susannah would be ruined. Even if Robert did not go so far as to make her his mistress, there were enough beady eyes trained on Miss Hullworthy to ensure any clandestine encounters, such as the one Deborah had witnessed, would be shouted from the rooftops. Social ruin was as painful as ruination in fact, with none of the attendant pleasures.

Once all the guests had gone, she returned to their rooms on the ground floor. Deborah stood stock still in the sitting room when Robert stalked past her into the bedroom, finally realising that there was a point beyond which even the strength of her love could not take her. It would be like a knife thrusting into her heart every time he sneaked off for snatched moments of intimacy with Susannah, expecting her to turn a blind eye. And if he ever took her with his eyes shut again, slaking the lust that another woman had aroused, her very soul would shrivel away to dust.

She rather thought she might go back to The Dovecote, before the storm broke. If she left it until the affair became public knowledge, people would see how
she felt. No lady, surely, could conceal that amount of anguish behind society manners? She knew such a feat was beyond her. She would feel humiliated every time she went out of doors, conscious of people eyeing her and talking about her. Eventually, it would prove too much for her, and she would have to flee from town.

She might as well get the fleeing part over with, then, right now, and avoid the humiliation.

She rose early the morning after the ball, having spent a sleepless night shivering on the sitting-room sofa. She had not been able to bring herself to enter the bedroom, not even to get herself a blanket. It was only when she realised she could not leave the house wearing her ball gown that she summoned up the courage to tiptoe in, and sneak a walking dress, coat and bonnet from the clothes press. She could not prevent herself from stealing one last look at her husband, who was, she discovered resentfully, sleeping soundly, with his arm flung out across the space where she usually lay.

She would go to her mother first, she decided, as she tossed the flimsy ball gown over the back of the sofa, and wriggled into her sensible, cambric walking dress. It would not be fair of her to leave London without warning her the affair was likely to commence as soon as she was out of the way.

A sleepy footman unbolted the front door for her, asking if she needed his escort.

‘No, thank you. I plan to take a cab straight to my mother's. Oh, see! There is one just at the corner.'

Having given her address to the driver, she climbed
inside, and sank gratefully on to the cushions. She hoped it was not too early to be making such a call. She was sure her mother would not mind getting up. Or perhaps she would just go straight up to her mother's room and speak to her there. What she had to relate was not for anyone else's ears.

She wondered that she had not yet felt the urge to cry. She knew she loved Robert more than life itself. Yet, since the moment she had seen Susannah in his arms, she had felt strangely frozen.

She had heard people talking about being numb with grief. She supposed that was why she was outwardly maintaining an appearance of calm, whilst inside she felt so terribly cold. She had been just like this after her father had died, mechanically seeing to all the necessary details. It had only been after the funeral was over, when she had been folding away one of his coats, and caught his dear, familiar scent lingering about the cloth, that it had hit her that she would never see him again. That was when the tears had begun to flow.

She would mourn Robert when this chilling numbness wore off, she expected. Wearily, she turned to look out of the window. And sat up with a sharp frown upon seeing the cab was passing through a shabby street she was sure she had never been down before.

She pulled the window down, and shouted up to the driver, ‘Excuse me, I think you may have mistook my direction. I asked you to take me to Half Moon Street.'

The driver pulled the cab to a halt at once. Another man, one who had been sitting on the box with the
driver, got down, and came to the window from which she was leaning.

Instead of apologising for his error, to Deborah's complete astonishment, he opened the cab door.

‘What do you think you're doing?' she squeaked as he pushed her roughly back into her seat, and got in, sitting down opposite her.

‘Making sure you don't slip through our fingers,' he said laconically.

‘Slip through … what are you saying?' Her heart began to pound against her breastbone. ‘Stop this cab and let me out at once!' she demanded, in as authoritative tone as she could muster. ‘Or you will be sorry!'

‘Threats, is it, now?' He grinned. ‘No, you should not be making any threats to me, Mrs Fawley. What you should be doing is begging for mercy.'

The dim hope that he must have mistaken her for someone else fled when he addressed her by name. Nevertheless, she put on a brave face, forcing herself to look directly into his puffy eyes, as she said, ‘Begging for mercy? Oh, no. You are the one who should beg my forgiveness for being so ill mannered as to try to frighten me.'

The man chuckled as he dealt her an open-handed slap across the face. She could not believe it. He seemed to have hardly put any effort into the blow at all, and yet it had sent her reeling into the corner of the carriage. She pulled herself upright, her hand instinctively going to her stinging lip. The man's grin broadened, as though well pleased with his little demonstration of brute strength.

‘That was just a hint, Mrs Fawley, to show you we mean business. If you have any sense, you won't try to
argue with me again. Just behave yourself, and there'll be no need to give you another lesson, see?'

He spoke so calmly that Deborah could hardly believe he had just hit her. But then she looked down at her glove and saw a red stain upon it. The force of his blow had split her lip. The feeling of wetness on her chin was her own blood, trickling from the stinging wound.

The disbelief on her face seemed to amuse her captor, for he chuckled, before folding his arms across his chest and settling down to watch her with lazy contempt.

He thought he had cowed her. Well, she would show him how wrong he was. If he thought she was so feeble-spirited that she would meekly let him carry her off without putting up a struggle, he was fair and far out!

As soon as the cab stopped, and her captor leaned forward to open the door, Deborah sprang to the opposite door, flung it open and dived out into the street. She had no idea where she was, but if she ran, shouting for help, someone was bound to come to her aid.

Her feet had barely hit the muddy surface, when a large hand descended on her shoulder. The man who had hit her had lunged through the coach the moment she had leapt out and grabbed for her.

‘Help!' cried Deborah, struggling against his grip. She felt her coat rip along the shoulder seam, as she pulled from him with all her might. But then the driver, about whom she had forgotten, came to his partner's aid, jumping down from the box and landing in the street before her. With a scowl, he put his open, gloved hand against her face, and shoved her, sending her sprawling
backwards into the coach, where she landed on the floor at the other man's feet.

Her skirt tore as he dragged her, kicking and struggling, through the carriage and out the other side, where she landed on all fours in the mud. He grabbed the collar of her coat, yanking her roughly to her feet and, not content with having recaptured her, he swung her round, smashing her face into the side of the cab. She reeled back from the explosion of pain, half-stunned. As her knees buckled, her assailant grasped her round the waist and swung her over his shoulder, as though she weighed no more than a sack of hops.

A series of impressions flitted across Deborah's dazed mind. A weary-looking woman, her eyes sliding away as though the sight of a kidnap in broad daylight was none of her business. Blood dripping down the back of the man's coat from her own face and splashing on to a flight of rough-hewn steps. Increasing darkness, and with it a strong smell of damp as her captor carried her ever deeper into his lair.

Finally, he stooped to pass through a low arch, then dropped her on to a mattress stuffed with straw. He stood looking down at her prostrate form with complete composure, while her dazed state crystallized into ice-cold fear.

‘I warned you to mind your manners,' her captor said coolly. He squatted down on his haunches beside her bed. ‘You ain't going to make any more trouble now, are you, pretty lady?' For good measure, he laid one meaty paw upon her ankle, running his hand under her skirts a way.

Deborah had thought she was levelheaded enough to
cope with anything. But the slide of that man's hand filled her with such sick loathing, she couldn't prevent herself from uttering a shriek of terror and drawing her leg away. She was completely in his power. The violence he had used to subdue her had been meant as a demonstration of what she might expect should she offer any further resistance. He could do anything to her, and there was nobody who would stop him.

She felt as though she had stumbled into another world. A world where the rules that had governed her sheltered existence until that point no longer applied. In this world, men could strike women in the street, and anyone who saw it would pretend they had not, lest they suffer the same fate.

‘Pity, almost, you've broke so soon,' he mused. ‘I would have enjoyed making you mind me.' He reached out, as though intending to take hold of her again. And Deborah scuttled backwards along the bed until she was curled into a ball, pressed up against the wall. He leaned over her, his eyes boring into hers as he took firm hold of her arm. When he snapped the strings of her reticule, as he pulled it from her wrist, she almost fainted with relief. He tore it open, tipping the contents on to the rough brick floor.

‘You don't carry much money for a woman as has married such a wealthy man,' he complained as he picked out the coins from amongst her clutter of personal effects. ‘Still, it will pay for the cab fare, and your board for as long as you're with us.'