Stewart sat on the edge of the bed. The stiffness in his leg no longer permitted him to kneel at Shannon’s side. His expression was carefully blank as he studied Shannon’s thick fall of hair bound tightly in a girlish braid. His icy eyes dropped to the thrust of her breasts pressing against the bodice of her gown. Beads of moisture appeared on his upper lip. One of his hands slipped behind her neck and wrapped itself around Shannon’s braid. With a less than gentle tug he pulled on her plait and forced her face upward.
Shannon’s heavy eyelashes fluttered a shade fearfully when she saw Stewart’s smile lacked any warmth. Held as she was, she could not recoil from the expression that devoured her, but her wish to do just that must have shown plainly on her face.
Stewart’s upper lip curled derisively. “You cannot flutter your lashes at me one moment, then profess to want your freedom in the next,” he said, putting his own construction on her silent actions.
There was no use insisting that she had not meant to be provocative. According to her stepfather, it seemed she could not help herself.
“Sit beside me,” he ordered gruffly.
Shannon did as she was told. Her complexion took on an ashen cast as Stewart began rubbing her spine with the heel of his hand. She shuddered.
Again Thomas Stewart believed what he wished to believe. “You’re trembling, Shannon. The devil’s passion is within you.”
Shannon made no reply, merely suffered his words and the touch of his hand. Biting her lower lip, she forced herself to remain unmoving while Stewart’s fingers fumbled with the hook fasteners at the back of her gown. His hand slipped beneath her chemise and rested against her bare flesh. Shannon felt cold all over, then numb.
Stewart leaned toward her. “No one must know,” he whispered near her ear. “I would not shame you by letting anyone know how I must drive the devil from you.” Taking her hand in his, Stewart laid it on his thigh so she could feel his arousal through his breeches. “You and your whorish ways have caused this, Shannon. I will not let you tease me this time. I will show you the consequence of your actions.”
Oh, please, Shannon thought. Not again! Had he forgotten his fondling could have no end but one? It would be as it had been before, as it had always been. He would command her to strip to her chemise, force her back on the bed, and lay his body over hers. He would push up her chemise, grope painfully at her breasts, release the hardness from his trousers. And then…nothing.
The moment he attempted to complete the act, his body would fail him. He would lie against her until his breathing returned to normal, then he would rear back, righting himself, all the while reviling Shannon for being the harlot that she was. He would cover his humiliation by calling her a temptress and saying again that he had proved he was stronger than she, that he had no need to enter her body to drive out Satan. A beating would do that.
Shannon was made to feel, in a perverse way, that she had failed him. His humiliation became hers and she rarely resisted the blows that came from Stewart’s walking stick, thinking them her due. She merely hunched at the head of the bed, covering her face and hands as best she could, and let his anger run its course.
Shannon wished now that he would simply strike her. It was easier to bear than the pawing of his sweaty palms.
“Take off your gown, Shannon.”
Shannon stood obediently and began to remove her gown. Tears dripped from beneath her closed lids. She prayed for Stewart’s death…or her own. It didn’t matter. Either would serve. He was tapping the cane impatiently against the floor. “Please,” she begged softly. “I will accept my punishment. Do not do this other thing to me. I promise…” She fell silent, unable to give voice to her promise. Should she say she would never talk to another man? Should she apologize for William’s offer? If she vowed she would not tempt her stepfather again, could she keep it when she hadn’t the least idea of what she had done?
Getting to his feet, Stewart raised the cane and struck Shannon across the back. The suddenness of the blow sent Shannon reeling forward. She stumbled on the hem of her gown and fell against the small table where she did her writing. The table tottered, and before Shannon could right it, she was struck again. This time the table fell on its side as Shannon’s knees buckled. Cowering between the table’s legs, she realized she was trapped. In an effort to see the next blow and protect herself, Shannon half turned toward her stepfather. She was as surprised as he when the cane whistled through the air and connected with the hand she had flung out to ward off the blow. Without thinking, Shannon clutched the stick in her stinging palm and yanked it from Stewart’s grip. She stared at it stupidly for a moment, then in a red haze of rage that she did not know she could experience, Shannon broke the cane over her knee. An awful silence followed the snapping of the walking stick, and Shannon trembled from the enormity of what she had done.
“You dare!” The words were forced out between Stewart’s clenched jaw and tight lips. He limped forward and raised a hand to strike her.
But without the cane, Shannon thought her stepfather did not seem so threatening. From somewhere deep inside her she felt her courage stir. When his hand came down Shannon ducked and thrust her hands forward to push Stewart away….
Shannon staredat the damp floor beneath her, unable to meet the earl’s eyes. Surely he would realize that she was all the things her stepfather had named her—and one more. A murderess. “Without the cane he could not steady himself,” she continued quietly with no emotion. “He fell backward and his head hit the bed frame. There was a snap. No more than that. I remembered thinking that breaking the walking stick made more noise. I found that strange, don’t you?”
“Shannon.” Eric said her name pityingly, cursing the inadequacy of his comfort. The story she told flushed the earl’s face with anger and disgust. He ached for this slip of a woman, relating her tale haltingly and with much embarrassment. He felt her pain keenly and was selfishly glad he had refused his mother’s and his young wife’s offer to accompany him to Newgate. He would spare them this, taking the responsibility on his own broad shoulders.
A shiver passed through Shannon. “I believe his neck was broken. Such a little sound…He wouldn’t have liked that. He would have wanted to make a larger protest.” She shrugged off another tremor. “I was frightened then. I did not want him to be found in my bedchamber. I did not want people to know about me…how evil I was and how he punished me for it. I dragged his body to the study and laid it in much the same position as it had been in my room, only against the stone apron of the fireplace. I waited there all night, and in the morning when our housekeeper came, I showed her the body and told her that I had killed him. I was brought here that same day. There was no help for it, you see; I did kill him.”
“Good God, Shannon,” Eric breathed softly. “It was an accident.”
“No. No, it wasn’t. I’ve told you that. I wanted him dead. And I made it happen. Now I want to die, m’lord. I don’t regret what I’ve done. Hell can be no worse than what I’ve endured. In truth, it has something to recommend it. My stepfather will not be there.”
That Shannon thought Thomas Stewart’s black soul had found a place in heaven was too much for the earl. He bit his lip to keep from giving vent to the curses that would surely embarrass Shannon and himself. He hadn’t the time to convince Shannon that she was the innocent and not the villain in this vile piece of business. He doubted she would believe him if all the minutes in the world were stretched before them. Five days. He had five days to put things to right, or at least as right as was in his power.
“Shannon, I want you to listen to me,” he said in his best patrician manner, knowing that she would respond to the authority in his tone. “Mother and I have agreed on a plan that will release you from Newgate. It is less than we wanted to do for you, but the lateness with which we received word of your crime has made it impossible to interfere in what has already been done. Your insistence that you acted with premeditation makes a new trial unlikely. Therefore, I must have your sentence changed. It will be difficult but it can be done. Influence and money have their places, and I will not hesitate to use either.”
Shannon shook her head, though she did not look at him. “I want you to do nothing.”
Eric hardened his heart and ignored her pitiful denial. “I will have your sentence reduced from hanging to indenture in the colonies. It would normally mean seven years of servitude while you worked off the price of your indenture papers, however, I can arrange with a friend in Virginia to pay the price immediately. He will purchase your papers and I will pay him. You will be a free woman the moment he has you safely in hand.”
Shannon heard nothing after Eric mentioned a friend in Virginia. He couldn’t mean Brandon Fleming, could he? The thought brought Shannon’s head up sharply, and she stared at the earl, very nearly horror-stricken. “I couldn’t,” she said. “It’s impossible.”
Eric misunderstood the reason for Shannon’s fear. “Nonsense. It is perfectly possible, and you will do very well there. You mustn’t let tales of savages and massacres frighten you, Shannon. The colonies are mostly civilized. Virginia has been settled for over one hundred years. I understand the countryside is quite beautiful.”
“It’s not that,” she protested, taking a different tack. “How would I live? What would I do? I have no way to support myself. Surely I would starve.”
