Of Moths and Butterflies (14 page)

“Surely he was speaking in jest,” Imogen asked of her still flushed companion, and hoping for any reassurance.

“You know of Wyndham? Of course you must,” Claire asked of her.

“No. I have seen him come and go from the Abbey on occasion, but I’ve never spoken to him.”

“And no one has spoken to you
of
him?”

“No. Should they have done?”

Imogen waited for the explanation, and dreaded it too.

“Mr. Wyndham is a menace. He is dangerous, deceitful and completely unconcerned with anyone or anything but himself. You will remember it?”

“Yes. Yes of course.”

“Your reply to him was well dealt, but I fear it will only encourage him. You may have a reason to consider him a threat. I pray it isn’t so. You will remember the warning?”

Imogen glanced back to see him trailing at a leisurely pace and felt her colour drain.

“Of course I’ll remember.” She smiled, hoping it would sweep the feeling of doom away, or at least remove the evidence from her ashen face. Clearly it didn’t’ work.

“Gina, my dear,” Claire said, appearing truly concerned now, “if I’ve upset you…”

“No,” she said. “It isn’t anything you’ve said or done.”

A long silence ensued, wherein Claire continued to observe her. “Something is wrong. Will you tell me?”

“There is nothing to tell,” Imogen said, her gaze fixed obstinately on the Abbey before them and the uncertain safety to be had within its walls. What had she done in coming here? Why had she assumed that amongst strangers she would find safety? In running away, had she abandoned her one solitary chance of ever finding it?

Claire reached out to her. “What is it?” she pleaded as a true friend would. “Tell me. You can trust me.”

Imogen had never before had a real confidante. The idea she might was a comforting one. A tempting one. “You will think me very foolish, I’m afraid, but I came here believing I would be out of harm’s way.”

“You came to seek safety
here
?”

“Yes. You do think me a fool.”

“No, but…”

“There isn’t anywhere a woman is safe, is there?” Imogen asked with a catch in her throat.

Claire looked her over very carefully, searching for something. At last she seemed to have found it. “I think you had better tell me the whole story.”

LAIRE, PLACED IMOGEN, bright eyed and pale, before the fire. She had tea brought up. It came, and Imogen, taking a cup, held it in her hands and felt the warmth, inhaled the comforting scent of bergamot and cloves. Smells of the East. Familiar. She took a sip and set it down.

“Now, please. Tell me what is wrong,” Claire said, seating herself beside her. You said you came here to find safety. From what then, or whom, had you need of seeking it?”

“I’m not sure, exactly,” she answered, yet undecided as to just how much she ought to tell, and certain she could not tell it all. “I was running from my history, I imagine. I’m afraid it will be difficult to understand.”

“Then begin, if you will, at the beginning. There is no hurry. You are my companion tonight. You have nothing to think of but to attend me.”

Imogen offered a grateful smile. She hesitated a moment more, but there was no use prevaricating, it seemed. Claire would have her way. “My parents died, I believe I told you that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“At the age of nine, I found myself alone, without father or mother. I was to go live with one of my aunts in London, and so I waited for her to fetch me. But it was my uncle who arrived instead. Though he had come all that way, he made it clear that he did not want me.

“My uncle was a moneylender,” she continued, but paused to assess Claire’s reaction. There was none. Nothing besides her enduring look of honest interest and good natured sympathy. “A great many of his patrons were those whom he had scouted out himself. He hunted them down, I believe, as mercilessly as any huntsman, from card rooms and racetracks, from brothels, anywhere their resources were squandered and wasted and where they would no doubt wish to return—once they paid their debts. With certain of these gentlemen—and you can be sure they were all gentlemen—he had formed a regular clientele, and they would sometimes come to the house. Quite often, actually.” The dark memories loomed and threatened now. She shut them out and went on.

“My uncle never paid me much attention, but when he saw how these men, young and old alike, took an interest in me, he began to encourage me to help him entertain. I did not see any harm in it at first, and to be honest, I quite liked the attention. It was such a novelty, you see, to be thought so highly of, to be made so much of. It went to my head, and I’m afraid I was perhaps more encouraging than I ought to have been.”

She paused for breath, and as she considered what must come next, what it was too late now to balk from, she found the anger and rage welling up within her.

“At the same time,” she went on, “with the unexpected discovery that these men found me worthy of attention, so, suddenly, did my uncle, and I found I could not go near him without his hands always being on me in one fashion or another.” A tear of shame spilled down her cheek.

Claire reached out and touched her arm. “He did not…” she asked, or began to ask, but did not finish.

“No. No he did not go so far as that, but it was through him that it happened. At least it is he I blame. Besides myself of course, for I ought to have known better.”

Claire took her hand and held it tightly. Encouraged, Imogen continued.

“My uncle stepped out one day and, relieved to have my solitude, I sat down to practice at the piano. It was then that one of my uncle’s
gentlemen
arrived. A Mr. Lionel Osborne. I admit I thought much of him, and toward me, my uncle encouraged his attentions.” She shook her head in recognition of her foolishness. And continued. “I did not hear him enter. In fact it was not until he spoke that I became aware of him at all.”

Imogen closed her eyes and there they were. The images. The horrific memories, pressing in upon her.

“I asked him,” she began again, falteringly. “I asked him if he had forgotten something. The way he looked at me. I should have known. I see that now. I was not a complete innocent, after all. Yet I thought myself safe. I always believed that my uncle would rescue me from anything too unseemly. Of course he would protect me. Wouldn’t he? But he didn’t. He turned his back on me. Do you want to know what he said? Mr. Osborne, I mean. I asked him if he had forgotten something. Do you want to know what he said?”

“If you want to tell me, Gina. If you think you can.”

“ ‘As a matter of fact I did.’ Those were his very words. And then...” She stifled a sob and the vision descended upon her as though it were happening all over again. “And then…he kissed me. Hard. Much too hard. There was nothing tender or kind in the gesture, nor in his embrace. He kissed me and he touched me, and he did not stop until–” She choked as a tear spilled over her eyelashes. “I do not have to say what happened next.” It was a question. A plea.

“No,” Claire said. “You don’t have to say any more, dear Gina. I understand you.” And putting her arms around her, Claire held her as she shook with the emotion, sorrow, rage, self-loathing, all of which she had kept deeply locked inside her, as she had been expected to do.

“So it was from these men you sought to escape?” Claire asked when Imogen had calmed a little. “This Mr. Osborne? And from your uncle?”

“No,” Imogen said, drying her tears. “It was only when my uncle died that I had the courage to run away. Perhaps it will not make sense to you, but it was because I could not bear to live with my aunts who had heartlessly watched me suffer, for nearly ten years under my uncle’s roof, that persuaded me to find some independence, no matter how humble. They knew what my life had been. They did not know all, but they knew enough. Always hinting at it too. To live with them, I would be forced to relive it all—over and over again. I know they see me as a dirty little thing, used and discarded and worthless now. Every time I see their face I’m filled with such shame and loathing. I hate them for turning their backs on me. And I hate myself for what I see in their eyes. I always feel that others can see it, that they will see it when they know me better, as if it is written across my forehead.”

Claire did not refute this, but in the silence that followed, seemed to consider and to understand.

At length, Imogen broke the silence. “I have a cousin, Claire, who wished to marry me. I think I was wrong not to accept him.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I thought I was protecting him.”

“Not protecting yourself?”

“Possibly,” Imogen conceded.

“I understand you.”

“Do you?”

Claire nodded and sighed, and then she spoke, with concentrated evenness, into the fire. “You count yourself unworthy of his love, and yet you doubt, at the same time, his ability to give it to you wholly. And if he did, were you to accept him, you would have to make the entirety of your history known, and thereby give him reason to be sorry of the alliance he made.”

“Yes,” Imogen said with more breath than voice. “You do understand. But how?”

She looked up at her once more. “Tell me about this cousin of yours,” she said, avoiding Imogen’s question almost pointedly.

“He is my cousin by marriage, my aunt’s late husband’s nephew. We have been the very best of friends from the time we met, when I was twelve or thirteen—until I left. I didn’t even say goodbye to him, Claire. And I miss him. I miss him terribly.”

“You loved him?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. But…”

“But?”

“Well, I know, in his way he loved me, else why would he want so much to marry me? But really, I don’t know that he was very much better than those other men. He has always treated me with respect but…I could not give my heart to him, always fearing it might be betrayed.”

“If you were to find a truly good man, could you give your heart to him, do you think?”

The question, being asked so pointedly, made Imogen’s heart start and flutter…then sink again with certain disappointment. “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “Do they even exist?”

“Oh, I think so,” Claire answered with a smile.

“Mr. Hamilton?” she dared to ask.

Claire sighed. “I see such promise in him,” she said. “I think were he to show a little effort for his own self-interest he might indeed be something magnificent. He has great goodness in him, and yet he is not quite the man he ought to be. Perhaps it is youth. I don’t know.” And with this, that brief glimmer of hope flickered and faded from her face. “He means well,” Claire went on. “He has his weaknesses, to be sure. But he is not resistant to ennobling influences when they are presented to him.”

“You?”

“I hope so. We have remained close, but I’m not here enough to have much power over him. Others will have their influence, after all.”

“Will you tell me what I ought to do?”

“Well. I think Wyndham was right about one thing.”

“What is that?” Imogen cautiously inquired.

“You must work for your living, you say?”

“Yes. That or return to my family. And I can’t bear to think of that.”

“But to continue to work here, as a common housemaid, that too is unthinkable. You must see that?”

“Under the circumstances, yes. Yes, I do. But what am I to do?”

“I do have an idea.”

“Tell me. I beg you.”

“You will serve me as my personal companion.”

Imogen started, considered, and then smiled broadly, hope beating fast and furious in her breast.

“We will finish out my fortnight, and when my holiday is over, you will come away with me. And we will see what can be done for you.”

“Will Sir Edmund allow it?”

“You are not a slave. If I insist on taking you, and you are willing to come, and I think you must… Say you will?”

“Yes, yes of course.”

“Well, then. What choice has he?”