She did not sleep well that night, as she struggled to banish the lurid thoughts of her employer from her mind. Years of practical living, of being regarded as little more than a servant or a mobile piece of furniture, had made her resolute and single-minded. She was alone, and all she desired from life was to be left alone in peace. Lying on her side, she stared at the bedside table. In the dark she could still make out the lamp, the first volume ofEast Lynne, and her little box fashioned from seashells.
A lump formed in her throat. The casket was intended to hold jewelry, but Susanna had none, save for the small gold cross her parents had gifted her on her sixteenth birthday. She had also once possessed a small ring of coral set in silver, but Maddy had taken it one winter, concealing it under her gloves while she wore it for a time; unsurprisingly, their parents were unwilling to demand its return when Susanna had finally exposed her. Even so, when Susanna had set eyes on the box in the little shop selling trinkets and souvenirs in Minehead during her first summer with the Pritchards, she’d desired it so much that she spent a fair portion of her wages on it.
The memory prompted Susanna to wonder about Emily and Jane. She hadn’t received a letter from either in six months’ time. Would they visit her, she wondered, if she ever purchased her cottage by the sea? She suddenly felt very lonely.
She gave in, throwing a hand over her head as she stared at the ceiling in the darkness. Whether it was the alcohol or Mr. Sedley’s words that had induced this weakness in both her limbs and her will, she could not say. Yet the gates had been flung open all the same. Visions flooded her mind: of Mr. Sedley kneeling over her, yanking off his neck cloth and peeling back his shirt, all the while staring hungrily at her on the bed below him. Of his fingers between her legs, slipping inside her. Of his lips on herneck, whispering filthy words against her skin. Of his hardness pressed against her leg.
It wasn’t enough, just thinking of it. Sheburnedfor him, for something more than her own hand kneading at her breast while her other slid down her stomach, eliciting her lonely gasps in the dark.
There was no one in Yorkshire who knew her or her family. If she succumbed to her employer’s charms, who would care, really? If she kept the knowledge to herself, who would even find out? And if she counted the days correctly, there would be no worry of conception.
Susanna halted, then withdrew her hands. Embarrassed, she wriggled about under the sheets as she pulled her nightgown back down. How could she eventhinksuch things? What if Maddy somehow found out? And what if she told their parents?
Besides, Mr. Sedley had said he was nearly prepared to send her away, were it not for Charlotte’s needs. He had said they would need to stay apart from each other, in the interest of protecting her from him, especially given his own history. Surely, though, his intent was to protect her from being taken advantage of, much in the way she had been by the Earl of Clifton. Would he truly be exploiting her if she wanted him so very badly?
Alone in the dark, Susanna closed her eyes, fighting against the hot tears pooling behind her eyelids. She had nothing that was hers, save her independence.
Ajax Sedley’s deep voice echoed in her mind, sending shivers down her back at the mere memory of it. He’d called her pretty. He thought she was intelligent. He claimed to desire her so much that he needed to sequester himself from her to shield her from that hunger. A flutter low in her body set her thoughts spinning once more.
Susanna had a choice. She could lie here in the dark and feel sorry for herself, just as she had when Orville married Maddy. She could pretend that she was dull and without charm, doomed to a quiet, solitary life with books as her only companions, save perhaps for a cat one day.
Or, she could explore the alternative.
She could be brave, and experience something of life and pleasure. Everyone she had ever known had expected her to be mute and compliant, a better educated servant who remained upstairs. But Mr. Sedley saw her, truly saw her. He enjoyed her conversation, and he wanted to give her pleasure. Shewasdesirable.
As she wrestled with the sheets into the small hours of the morning, Susanna knew she would be a fool to reject his proposal that they rarely see each other during her time here.
And a fool to accept it.
By the time the sun rose, she knew what she would do.
Chapter Thirteen
He was still drunkwhen he finally sealed the letter to Rokeby. Ghosts it was, and he’d sure as hell better figure out what said ghost’s forlorn embrace entailed within the next fortnight. He would need to straighten out and apply himself diligently.
Thank heavens he hadn’t gone and done anything stupid, like bare his soul to his daughter’s governess.
Ajax eyed the nearly empty tumbler at the edge of his desk. Why, throughout his entire life, was he the common denominator of all his troubles? Dropping his pen, he took the drink and finished it in one swallow. He scrubbed his face, wishing he could just be a proper bastard, one who fucked his mistresses but still held polite conversation with ladies. Not a right lecher who told ladies just how much he wanted, nay,neededto fuck them.
The thought tore open the wound he could not leave be, as if he were hungry for fresh blood at every turn. He took up his pen again and drummed it restlessly against the blotter, tallying uphis score at the end of these few months as a father. Truth be told, he was barely treading water.
His own father was not one to measure himself against, to state the obvious. As for his brother Tiberius… Ajax frowned. His own brother had done more to raise him, the snot-faced little brat he’d been saddled with, even as the man’s own son was off at school. All while managing a growing boot blacking business as well. A boot blacking business he vastly preferred above all of life’s other distractions. Though one could hardly hold that against him, Ajax supposed, given the family Tiberius had been born into.
A maudlin feeling settled over him. He could not bear to put Charlotte through the typical life of a Sedley, not if there was a chance of her having something better. Something that no Sedley could ever lay claim to possessing. Well, aside from his cousin Bess, perhaps; she’d always been a bit too simple for all the Sedley madness, the lone female in generations of miserable, womanizing gits. He sat reflecting idly on them all. Bess, and her son Marcus. Tiberius.
Harmonia. He wondered how she and her new husband were getting on, and he silently sent thoughts of goodwill to his great-niece. It hurt to think of her suffering the way he had, the way they all had. It was a new feeling, this concern for others that couldn’t be papered over with handbills and magazines and paintings. Not knowing quite what he was after, Ajax took another sheet of paper and dashed off a note to Harmonia. He’d never written the girl her entire life, but he’d meant it when he told her that she was always welcome at Gallox Castle. Once that was finished, he threw himself back in his chair with an uncertain sigh.
Not bothering to even attempt to sleep, he got up and took to the halls, finding his way to the library in the dark as handily as he had as a boy.
He held her name in his thoughts, and he was desperate to have it on his tongue, to read it from the page.Susanna. He poured himself another drink from the bottle hidden in the shelves and then withdrew several heavy, expensive books from their long-undisturbed resting places, the richly printed ones with plates of paintings affixed to the pages.
Ajax paused for a moment, frowning at the sight of his most prized volume, the Lamplugh’s bestiary, sitting slightly cockeyed on its stand. He took a moment to adjust it and run a delicate finger lovingly over the cover before returning to the table.
He flipped methodically through the heavy art books until he’d assembled a collection of works. Tintoretto, Rubens, Allori: three different depictions of the apocryphal Susanna and the elders. A nude Susanna caught bathing, shocked as the two lustful elders leered at her.
He leaned back in his chair and took a sip, considering the three different plates. None were as lovely as his Susanna, he was certain of that. But was he any different from the hated elders, their features distorted with lecherousness? Of that he was not certain at all. He took another swig. Two elders. The Earl of Clifton and himself? Ajax snorted at the thought, then drank again. How the pompous man would loathe to be painted with the same brush as a Sedley, figuratively or literally. Ajax had no illusions about himself, though. They were both bastards, desperate to bed a parson’s daughter.
Wilkie Clogg, the bloated buffoon from his club, wandered into his thoughts. Laughable, really, the disgusting old swine lusting after some young opera singer. A redhead, too.
