Beloved Enemy (71 page)

"We're
going home," Giles said to his wife without preamble or explanation.

"The
party is barely begun," Ginny demurred in a low voice. "It would be
most discourteous of us to depart this early."

"How
many times do I have to tell you not to tell me how to behave?" Giles
exclaimed furiously. "I say we are going home, and that should be enough
for you. Or do your good manners not apply to your husband?" His lip
curled in a sneer.

Ginny
felt the anger inside her threatening to slip the bands of control; then she
saw Alex standing within earshot, his eyes warning her, his expression stricken
with the frustration of his helplessness. She bit her lip, put down her needle
and patchwork, and rose. "You must excuse me, ladies. I expect my
husband's old wound is paining him." with a smile, she walked away from
the group. Giles grabbed her arm.

"Where
are you going? The canoe is on the river, in case you have forgotten."

"I
am going to make my farewells to our hosts," she mapped, pulling at her
arm. "Let go of me, Giles, or I will create such a scandal right here that
will go down in living memory."

She
spoke with soft, determined intensity, and he released her, but the coil of his
bitter rage tightened, and Ginny shivered inside, well aware that she had won a
public battle at the expense of the private one that would be fought later.

“You
cannot possibly leave," Susannah exclaimed in genuine distress. "The
dancing has but just begun, and there will be supper soon, and I had thought we
would play blind-man's buffet and — "

"Giles
is not feeling well," Ginny said, daring her husband with a cold-eyed
stare to contradict her. If she must leave she would do so, but with a modicum
of dignity, of pretense that it was not under duress.

Giles
found that he could not gainsay her and even mumbled his own excuses, blaming
his hip and the autumnal mists beginning to swirl in from the river. Ginny
turned round in search of Robert and found herself facing Alex.

"You
are leaving, Mistress Courtney," he inquired politely, bowing over her
hand as she curtsied. Her fingers quivered in his, and he squeezed them hard.

"I
fear so, General," she replied brightly, moving apart as he released her
hand.

For
the moment they were without an audience, and Alex said in a fierce whisper,
"Meet me tomorrow in the glade by the Indian village —in the morning. Do
not fail. I must know that you are all right."

She
nodded imperceptibly before rejoining her husband, and Alex watched them walk
down to the river, Ginny stiff-backed, Giles with a pronounced limp.

"Damnable
business," Robert Harrington muttered at Alex's shoulder. "Cannot
interfere though, not between husband and wife."

"He
has the right to treat her as he pleases, then?" Alex asked, eyebrows
raised.

Robert
shrugged. "You know the law, my friend. Short of serious injury or murder,
a man may do as he please around his own hearth. To my knowledge, Courtney goes
no further than what you saw today. Virginia would be wiser not to provoke him.
She does have a sharp tongue, you'll agree."

"Like
a bee sting," Alex murmured almost distractedly, and his companion looked
at him, startled.

"Beg
pardon, Alex?"

"Nothing."
Alex recollected himself. "Nothing at all, Robert. Shall we join the
ladies?"

Ginny
paddled the canoe with its double burden through the misty dusk. She had had
enough. Her soul was cramped by the bitter, mean spiritedness of the man
crouched opposite her, glowering into the gloom. The wine she had taken earlier
no longer uplifted her but had left her with a sourness in her mouth and an
incipient throb behind her temples. The afternoon's scenes of humiliation
played constantly in her head, and John Redfern's daughter knew that she could
take no more, not without losing all self-respect.

They
reached home, and the house stood square and uninviting after the cheerful
revelry they had left behind. Ginny tied up the canoe and followed Giles,
limping morosely, inside.

"I
hope you are not hungry," she said. "I had assumed we would sup at
the Harringtons', so there is nothing prepared."

"Then
fetch me bread and cheese." Giles reached for the whiskey flagon standing
on the dresser.

"I
am sorry, but you must fetch it yourself. I have a headache and am going to
bed." Ginny went up the stairs as Giles bellowed at her to come back. She
ignored him, then heard his step on the stair, and apprehension shivered her.
She quashed it, beginning to unloose her hair, removing the tortoiseshell
combs.

"Who
the devil do you think you are?" Giles demanded, filling the stairway.
"I want my supper. Now go and get it, wife "

"There
is bread in the barrel, cheese in the covered dish in the pantry," she
said with an assumption of patience. "It should not be beyond your
capabilities to get it for yourself. I am not expecting you to till a field, or
milk a cow, or grind corn, or feed the chickens, or draw water from the well —
"

"Be
silent!" her husband roared, breaking into the catalogue of tasks that she
accomplished without murmur and that he was quite incapable of tackling.
"That is not work for a gentleman."

"Is
it not?" She turned on him, the gray eyes bright with scorn. "There
are gentlemen aplenty around here who do such things and take pride in the
doing."

"And
you would reward them? Is that it, traitor's whore?" He stepped up to her,
the blue eyes narrowed to slits. "You don't save your charms for
my
bed,
that's for sure. Lying as lumpen as unleavened bread—"

"And
what would you have me do?" she cried. "It is not my fault that the
drink has taken your manhood from you . . . Ah!" Ginny reeled as he struck
her with his open hand. But she came back at him, her own hands flailing, all
fear, all thoughts of decorum and wifely modesty vanquished by an upsurge of
outrage that for a few moments gave her the advantage of surprise.

Not
for an instant had it occurred to Giles that his wife would strike back, and he
retreated before the onslaught. Then the red mist of fury enveloped him as he
remembered that this woman was his wife, the unfaithful traitor who had
betrayed his bed as she had betrayed the king's cause, who dared to instruct
him and take him to task, who made his life wretched with her icy indifference
and the scorn she did not attempt to hide. And now, his wife, bound to him by
vows of obedience, possessed by him as he possessed his domestic chattels was
daring to raise her hand to her lord. His clenched fist slammed against her
cheekbone, and she fell to the floor. Ginny saw him, towering over her, arm
raised, something in his hand; then, instinctively, she covered her head with
her arms. . . .

A long
time later, Ginny lay, still crouched upon the floor listening to the sounds in
the room. There was a strange, low keening sound interspersed with rumbling
snores and a deep, uneven breathing. It took her a minute to realize that the
keening came from her, and she fell silent with a long shuddering breath. The
floor was hard and unyielding against her face, and gingerly she got to her
knees, expecting the return of pain with every movement. Carefully, she stood
up, forced herself to straighten her burning shoulders, looked at the inert
figure sprawled across the bed. Exhausted by that burst of savagery, Giles had
simply collapsed, leaving her a broken, whimpering heap on the floor.

A wash
of self-disgust broke over her. How had she allowed him to do that to her? And
she had permitted it, had made no attempt to defend herself from the blows
raining down upon her back. And she had invited the brutality, begged for it
with her provocation. What was she —to invite and permit a beating of the kind
a man would give his dog?

Ginny
lit a taper in the dark chamber and staggered over to the mirror, one of the
more precious things they had brought from England, and looked upon her face
with contempt and loathing. A livid bruise stood out on her cheek, her lip was
swollen and bleeding, but as she gazed at the image that was herself, yet not
herself, merciful reality reasserted itself. She had done nothing to invite or
deserve that, except lose the caution that normally kept her treading warily.
She had lost the caution under unbearable provocation. And she had fought back
for as long as she was able.

She
turned back to the shadowy shape of her husband on the bed. A sharp kitchen
knife at his throat, it would be so easy. . . . Except that she was incapable
of doing such a thing. But never again would he raise his hand to her,
never.
Determination entered like iron into her soul. Neither would he find her
cowed and defenseless. Taking the candle, she went down to the kitchen, took
the dipper to the pail of water by the door and filled a bowl, which she placed
on the table, and methodically fetched her medicine basket and a soft cloth.

All of
these actions, Ginny performed quite calmly, as if operating in some cool clear
space of her own. She bathed her bruised face and laid a pad soaked in witch
hazel against her cheekbone. Slipping her gown off her shoulders, she examined
the damage there as best she could, noting almost dispassionately that while
the skin was raised and red, it was not broken. She poured herself a glass of
brandy and sat down at the table to think. She had promised to meet Alex in the
morning, but all the skill and medicine in the world would not remove the
traces of Giles's savagery by then.

Alex
must not know of it. There was nothing he could do about it, and only she could
prevent a repetition. He would be tormented by his helplessness. Ginny had seen
the stricken look on his face that afternoon, had heard the pain in his voice
when he had noticed her bruised wrist. What would the knowledge of this do to
him? Besides, it was too humiliating to think of
anyone
knowing what had
happened to her. It was one of those dark, shameful secrets that must be kept
buried in the deepest recesses of the soul. She would keep close to the house
until her face was healed and tell Alex that she had been unable to get
away—that Giles had not left the house. Something of that kind would do.

Her
decision made, Ginny went back upstairs, took a quilt and pillow from the chest
that served as linen press, returned to the kitchen, and made up her makeshift
bed on the floor before the fire where she lay awake, stiff and throbbing,
until dawn lightened the sky and bird song filled the air. Then, finally
reconciled, knowing and understanding her own strength, she fell into a light
but peaceful sleep.

Chapter
28

For
the next three mornings, Alex waited in the glade near the Indian village, and
he waited in vain, the spiral of anxiety coiling ever tighter. If there had
been a disaster, news would have reached Harrington Hundred, and no one there
seemed to find a few days without contact with the Courtneys a matter for
remark. But even as he told himself this, he knew that something had happened
to prevent Ginny from meeting him, and whatever it was, it was not trivial. She
was far too resourceful to let minor problems stand in the way of achieving her
goal. This was a woman who had evaded the watchful eyes of an entire brigade,
for heaven's sake!

On the
afternoon of the third day, Susannah bustled into the parlor where her husband
was casting his accounts, his guest examining some proposals to be put before
the legislature in Jamestown at its next session. "Robert, I am much
concerned."

"About
what, my dear?" He looked up from the desk with its twelve drawers, one
for every month of the year.

"Well,
there is talk in the kitchen that matters are not going well at Courtneys ... I
know you say one should not listen to kitchen talk," she went on
hesitantly, seeing his frown, "but Lizzie came this morning to collect the
flitch of bacon that Ginny had put to smoke in our smokehouse, and she said
that her mistress had fallen, but cook says Lizzie does not really believe—"

"I
do not wish to listen to servants' gossip, madam, and if you must listen to it
yourself, I will not have it repeated," her husband declared, raising his
hand imperatively for silence. "What is between the Courtneys is simply
that—between
them.”