His wife’s blank apathy had been shattered, and she shook with racking sobs as she wrenched herself away from her tormentor, her body convulsing into a tight knot of slender limbs.
His head whirling with sick vertigo, Gervase rolled onto his back and threw one arm over his eyes as he gasped for breath. In the ashes of fury lay guilt and disgust as reason reasserted itself. He had behaved no better than an animal, abusing a helpless female. The girl had conspired to entrap him and was doubtless a slut at heart, but she did not deserve this kind of revenge.
When his dizziness subsided he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and burying his face in his hands as he shuddered with self-contempt. Feeling unutterably tired, he raised his head and contemplated the girl he had married.
Though inexperienced with virgins, he saw that action was necessary, so he stood and picked up a linen towel from the washstand. After folding it, he handed it to her and said curtly, “Put this between your legs and press your thighs together.” She stared through her tangled hair, then took the towel in a trembling hand and did as he bade her.
Drawing the blankets over the girl, he realized how very young she was, perhaps only fourteen. When her father put her to this scheme, had she known what marriage meant? Or did she think this just a game that would get her jewels and fine clothes?
“Look at me.” Though Gervase’s voice was neutral and free of inflection, she cringed away. He reached down for her chin and turned her face toward him. The girl was completely broken, without even the spirit to close her eyes against him.
Wearily he said, “Stop crying, I’m not going to do anything more to you. Listen carefully, because I will say it only once. I don’t ever want to see you again. My lawyer is John Barnstable and you can write to him at the Inner Temple in London. I will inform him of this hell-born ‘marriage’ and he will arrange for you to receive an allowance. It will be a generous one, and you and your father can live in comfort on my money for the rest of your life. But there is a condition.”
The girl’s dark eyes were still dull. Exasperated, he asked, “Do you understand what I am saying? Surely you speak English.” Many of the island Scots spoke only Gaelic, though he would expect the daughter of a clergyman to have some education.
When her head nodded, he continued with icy precision. “I never want to see or hear from you again in my life. If you ever come near London or any of the St. Aubyn properties, I will cut off your allowance. Am I making myself clear?”
Again she nodded faintly, but as Gervase studied her with narrowed eyes, he realized with shock just how strange her face was. The girl wasn’t normal; there was a slackness in her expression, and something indefinably wrong about the eyes.
The child he had raped was simple, too crippled in mind to understand what her father had arranged for her.
Releasing her chin as if it were a hot coal, he stood up, fighting down nausea as he grasped the extent of the crime he had committed. To force a scheming young virgin was despicable, even though she was legally his wife. To rape a creature too afflicted to know why she had been abused was a sin as unforgivable as the one he had committed when he was thirteen.
With cold, shaking hands he dragged his clothes on, wanting only to escape this hellish place. The girl had curled into a tight little ball on the bed, the only sign of life her strange, unfocused eyes.
Since an incompetent was hardly likely to remember his words, Gervase reached for the ink and pen that had been used for the marriage lines. On the back of one of his cards he printed his lawyer’s name and address, then wrote,Hamilton: Don’t ever bring her near me again. She may not use my name.After a moment’s pause he added,Take care of her well. When she is dead, you will receive nothing more from me.
That should ensure the girl decent treatment from her father, since it would be in the man’s best interest to keep her safe and healthy. She had smelled clean; perhaps her father already had some kind of keeper for her. A full-time nursemaid must cost almost nothing in this godforsaken part of the world.
Gervase stood, placing the card on the table. The girl was shivering, so he took a moment to rummage in the wardrobe for a blanket. She cowered fearfully away as he spread the blanket over her. His mouth tightened at the sight; it was no more than he deserved.
Her dark unfocused gaze followed him to the doorway, where he paused. His legal wife was like a frightened woodland creature frozen in panic as a predator waited. His throat tight with guilt, he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
The words were more for his benefit than hers, since she seemed to have no idea what was happening. Though he had never had grounds to believe in a benevolent deity, Gervase prayed she would soon forget what had happened. He knew better than to hope that he would do the same.
* * *
Five hours later Gervase and his servant, Bonner, were in a fishing boat carrying them toward the mainland. Bonner was a tight-lipped former military batman who nodded without comment when ordered to discuss the events of the night with no one, ever, and he had efficiently taken charge of packing his master’s gear. Gervase had waited outside, unwilling to be in the same room with his bride a moment longer than necessary.
As the boat threaded its way between the islands, Gervase’s face was set in granite lines, his attention focused on rebuilding the mental walls that prevented his self-hatred from overwhelming him. Logically he knew that the events of the previous night were of no real importance. The thousand pounds a year he would settle on the girl would keep her and her appalling father in luxury without making a significant dent in his own fortune. Though most men would curse the loss of their freedom to marry whom they chose, it made no difference to him. He had known for the last ten years that he could never marry.
But no logic could dispel his implacable guilt when he thought of the hapless child he had abused. No amount of legitimate anger or whiskey was great enough to justify those moments of violence.
The incident was one more cross he must learn to bear. His remorse taunted him, mocking the resolution he had made to become his own man in India, to free himself from the past by building a new life. Perhaps Hamilton was right, and men were damned before they were even born.
Gervase had always distrusted intuition, but as he watched the dark shore of Mull fall away behind him in the misty dawn, he could not escape a heavy sense of doom. Somewhere, sometime in the future, he would pay a price for last night’s disastrous stupidity, and for his own unforgivable loss of control.
Chapter One
Yorkshire, January 1806
The wind blows without ceasing on the high Yorkshire moors, in the spring bright with promise, in the summer soft as a lover’s caress, in the autumn haunted with regret. Now, in the depths of winter, the wind was ice-edged and bleak, teasing the shutters, threatening the doors, taunting the impermanence of all man-made structures. But High Tor Cottage had held firm against the wind for hundreds of seasons, and its thick stone walls were a warm haven for those sheltered within.
As her son’s lashes fluttered over his dazed lapis-blue eyes, Diana Lindsay gently touched his dark hair, feeling the spun-silk texture before settling in the bedside chair to wait until he was soundly asleep. Most days, as she dealt with the demands and occasional irritations of an active five-year-old, her love for Geoffrey was not on the surface of her mind, but at times like this, when he had suffered a bad seizure, she was so filled with tenderness that she ached with knowing how precious life was, and how fragile. For all the worry and occasional despair it occasioned, her son’s disorder gave Diana a greater appreciation of the wonder that was a child.
When Geoffrey’s breathing was steady, Diana rose to leave the room. She could have spent all night quietly watching him, yet to do so would be mere indulgence on her part. Even now, years before he would leave her to make his own way in the world, Diana knew how hard it would be to release him when the time came. Walking out this night was just one more of a thousand small disciplines she performed in preparation for the day when Geoffrey would belong to himself more than to her.
As she walked from her son’s small bedchamber into the hall, she heard the wind beginning to gust, the windows rattling to protest the oncoming storm. Though it was only four in the afternoon, the light was almost gone and she could not see the small farm shed across the yard when she looked out.
