The Pretenders (18 page)

His hand left my mouth for a fraction of a second and then his mouth came down on mine, grinding into me, shoving my head back into the pillow. I gritted my teeth but he pried my lips open with his own and thrust his tongue inside my mouth.

His breath stank of brandy.

I couldn’t believe how powerless I was. I was young and strong and utterly and completely helpless beneath Robert’s assault. I had never before fully realized the difference between a man’s strength and a woman’s.

With his free hand, Robert was ripping the covers away from my lower body. Then I felt the full weight of him on top of me and his knee came up to force apart my legs.

Blind, mindless panic ripped through me. I bucked and kicked and twisted under him, desperate to get away.

“I’m going to have you first, you beautiful bitch,” Robert growled against my mouth. ”Let’s see how Reeve likes
that
.”

He had lifted his mouth slightly to taunt me, giving me a chance to croak out one weak, ineffectual cry for help. In a second his mouth was mashing mine into a pulp again.

I felt his hand pushing up my nightdress.

No, No, No
, I screamed in my mind, and fought harder against the strength and the weight that were overpowering me.

Suddenly there was the sound of splintering glass.

Robert went limp on top of me.

I heard Mama’s quavering voice say, “Deborah? Are you all right, Deborah? Oh God, did that man hurt you?”

I strained to roll Robert’s heavy body off of me, not caring if he landed in a pile of broken glass. Mama was standing next to the bed with a broken vase still clutched in her hand. Her hand was trembling so badly that I was afraid the remainder of the vase was going to drop to the floor.

“Oh God, Mama. Thank God you came,” I said. My own voice was trembling as badly as hers. ”Robert was going to rape me.”

“He didn’t?” Her voice was urgent.

“No.” My head was going back and forth like a metronome. ”You came in time.”

She shut her eyes. “Oh thank God,” she said. “Thank God, thank God, thank God.”

She dropped the remains of the shattered vase on the edge of the bed and held out her arms to me. I slid off the bed, away from the inert figure of Robert, and went into my mother’s arms.

We clung together for a long, trembling minute.

“How did you know to come?” I finally managed to ask.

“I heard you call out,” she said.

She was much smaller than I, but there was no doubt that it was her arms that were giving support and comfort to me. I said shakily, “I hardly made a sound. I can’t believe you were able to hear me.”

She held me closer. “Mothers have a sixth sense when their children are in trouble, darling.”

Finally we separated and looked around the room. Robert was lying unconscious on the bed with blood seeping from a wound on the back of his head. The bed was filled with shards of Mama’s heavy crystal weapon.

A thought came to my mind. I said urgently, “Reeve must never find out about this. He would kill Robert.”

“Someone must be told, Deborah,” Mama said somberly. ”I think we had better get Lord Bradford.”

After a minute, I nodded in agreement.

“I’ll go,” Mama said, and she went next door to her bedroom to get her robe. I waited in the room with Robert, the fireplace poker in my hand. I wasn’t taking any chances if he should come around and try his tricks again.

It wasn’t long before Mama returned with Lord Bradford, who was wearing a dressing gown over his nightshirt. I told him what had happened.

I don’t believe I have ever seen a man’s face look so bleak.

“I don’t know what I can say to you, Deborah,” he said. ”There are no apologies possible for a thing like this. Thank God Robert was stopped before he interfered with you, but there is no doubt that you have had a very shocking and frightening experience.”

“It was not pleasant,” I agreed shakily.

“I don’t know what is wrong with Robert,” Lord Bradford said in real despair. All of his usual demeanor of a man in control of his world was gone. ”I must have made some terrible mistake in the way I brought him up to account for his turning out like this. For years I have told myself that he was only sowing his wild oats, but this kind of thing goes beyond the bounds of civilized behavior. This is vicious.”

“It was aimed against Reeve,” I said. My head was beginning to throb and I rubbed the back of my neck. ”That is what he told me. He wanted to be first with me to get even with Reeve.”

Lord Bradford closed his eyes.

Mama went over to him and put her hand on his arm. “Don’t blame yourself, Bernard,” she said gently. “Harry is a very fine young man, and Sally is a lovely young lady, and they are your children, too. There is something fundamentally wrong with Robert, and I’ll wager there was something wrong with him from the time that he was a small boy. It’s not your fault”

The pain on Lord Bradford’s face made me forget my own horrors for a moment and feel sympathy for him.

I said, “I don’t think we had better tell Reeve about what happened tonight, Lord Bradford. I’m afraid of what he might do.”

“He would call Robert out, and he would have every right to do so,” Lord Bradford said.

“I don’t want Reeve involved in a duel with Robert,” I said firmly. ”I’m afraid he would kill him, and I don’t want Reeve to have to live with another death on his conscience.”

Lord Bradford ran his hand through his disordered brown hair. “I must confess that I would be very grateful to you if you allowed us to keep this quiet, Deborah. And I promise you that Robert will be gone from this house as soon as he is fit to travel. I will not subject you to such a dreadful experience again.”

The three of us turned to look at Robert’s unconscious body. He was breathing stentorian.

“That wound on his head will have to be attended to,” I said. I turned to my mother and managed a faint smile. ”You gave him a good whack, Mama.”

There were dark shadows under my mother’s eyes, and her return smile was not a success. “I did not want to take any chances,” she said.

Lord Bradford made up his mind. “I’ll get Harry. He spends so much time with Dr. Calder that he is half a doctor already. He can patch Robert up and help me carry him back to his own room. Then I’ll get my own valet in here to clean up the glass and change the sheets. He is totally trustworthy.”

“All right,” I said. The pain in my head was growing worse, and I felt quite incredibly weary.

Mama said, “Would you like to sleep in my room for the remainder of the night, Deborah?”

I realized that I would like that very much. It wasn’t until I was safe in the big bed next to her that I began to shake. Mama put her arms around me and held me as if I were four years old, and eventually I drifted off to sleep.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, LORD BRADFORD TOLD
the rest of the house party that Robert had gotten into a fight in town, had been set upon by a group of drunken sailors and badly beaten. Harry told me privately that when Robert had not come back to consciousness within an hour, he had insisted that Dr. Calder be called in. Robert had eventually come around, but Dr. Calder had said that he should not be moved for two days.

Lord Bradford posted a footman outside Robert’s door with instructions not to allow him to leave it He told Reeve and the rest of the house party that this was to prevent Robert from trying to return to Fair Haven, where he would once more get into trouble by trying to get even with the men who had beaten him. In reality, of course, it was to keep Robert away from Reeve and me.

Two days after Robert’s attempt to rape me, Lord Bradford had his eldest son removed to a small property he owned in Hampshire. His face was extremely bleak as he told me this.

I found myself trying to comfort him. “Mama is right, Lord Bradford. Robert’s bad disposition cannot be laid at your door. From what Reeve has told me, Robert has always thought that he should be the center of the world. Surely this is not a normal state of mind for a young man such as he. Harry doesn’t feel that way. Nor does Reeve, for that matter.”

“You are very kind, Deborah,” Lord Bradford said. “And very generous. You have every reason in the world to fear and despise my family.”

“Nonsense,” I said.

He gave me a wry look. “Lady Sophia is hardly a credit to us either, I’m afraid.”

“She has been good to Reeve, and that is all that really matters to me,” I said stoutly.

He looked at me for a moment in silence. Then he said, “I cannot tell you how thankful I am that Reeve has found you. I have not seen the boy look this relaxed and happy in years.” He gave me the wannest smile I had ever earned from him. “That’s really why I pushed for such a fast wedding, you know. I didn’t want you to get away from Reeve. You’re good for him. I really do believe that, with you, he may settle down and lead a decent, useful life.”

I didn’t know what to say. I could feel my cheeks grow warm, and I mumbled something about Reeve and I knowing each other forever.

Lord Bradford’s gray eyes looked amused. “He loves you, Deborah. Didn’t you know that? He watches you all the time, and the look on his face is unmistakable.”

My cheeks grew even hotter. Lord Bradford patted my arm. “I have high hopes for this marriage, my dear,” he said. “Very high hopes indeed.”

Then he had mercy on my embarrassment and left me alone.

We had been standing by ourselves on the terrace outside the morning room during this conversation, and now I walked slowly down the stone terrace stairs and into the sweet-scented garden, my mind full of what Lord Bradford had said.

Was it true? Did Reeve truly love me?

I reminded myself that when it came to Reeve, I couldn’t trust Lord Bradford’s word. Lord Bradford didn’t understand Reeve. If he had understood him, he would never have withheld Reeve’s money from him for all these years.

How wonderful it would be if Lord Bradford were right
, I thought.
How wonderful it would be if Reeve loved me
.

I fought to contain the elation that I felt bubbling up inside of me. I must be very careful not to pressure Reeve for more than he was willing, or able, to give, I cautioned myself. Reeve’s emotional balance was very fragile. He had never gotten over the accident that had killed his mother, and over the years I had sometimes wondered if he would ever be able to trust himself to love again. It seemed to me that in his mind, love was dangerous—or, at least, his love was.

A line from Byron’s poem slipped into my mind:
He knew himself a villain
.

Damn
, I thought.
Reeve has more sense than that idiotic Corsair
.

At least I prayed that he did.

I spent a great deal of the time before my wedding day working on the town’s summer fair. Almost every day Mama and I met with the Wakefield village ladies committee to organize and coordinate the great event.

In truth, after having been in existence for so many years, the Wakefield Summer Fair almost ran itself. The same people had been doing the same jobs forever, and none of the ladies needed any directions from either Mama or me as to what needed to be done in their area of command.

“I haven’t the vaguest idea why it is so important for you and me to be at these meetings,” I said to my mother one morning as we returned home from a meeting at Mrs. Clark’s, the wife of the village apothecary. ”These women are perfectly well aware of what needs to be done; they don’t need us.”

“They don’t need us to give them direction,” Mama agreed, ”but they do need us to make them feel that what they are doing is important And it
is
important, Deborah. An affair such as this brings the whole village, indeed the whole surrounding area, together.”

It was a warm sunny day, and I was driving Lord Bradford’s gig with Mama sitting beside me. It had rained the night before and I concentrated on negotiating a rather deep and muddy puddle in the middle of the road. Then I glanced at Mama and casually changed the subject. “Do you think that perhaps Lord Bradford might be altering his mind about Harry going to the Royal College of Physicians?” I asked. “He did call him in to take a look at Robert the other night”

Mama said primly, “I do not know Lord Bradford’s mind on that subject, Deborah.”

I let the bay gelding I was driving trot along the narrow country road for about two more minutes, then I said, “I think it would be a very great pity for Harry to be unable to fulfill his dream just because his father was too full of his own importance to let his son become a doctor.”

Mama said disapprovingly, “I do not think it is your prerogative to make judgments on Lord Bradford, Deborah. He has been very kind to the both of us, and surely the way he deals with his children is his own business.”

The horse was beginning to lag, and I clicked to him to trot on. I said, “I don’t think Lord Bradford has any notion at all about how to deal with people. In my opinion, he did a great deal of harm to Reeve by not allowing him to have control of his inheritance, and now he is trying to force Harry to become a clergyman against his own inclination.” I glanced at my mother’s profile. “Really, Mama, that is the outside of enough. Would
you
like to have as rector of your parish a man who hated his job?”

There was a distinct trace of anger in Mama’s voice as she returned, “You exaggerate, Deborah. There is nothing to suggest that Harry would hate being a clergyman.”

I was sitting as straight as a ramrod on the seat of the gig. “He says he will hate it, and I believe him,” I said stubbornly. “Furthermore, it would be just like Lord Bradford to force poor Sally to marry someone she doesn’t like, just because he has the right bloodlines or something.”

I didn’t know what perverse imp was making me say these things to Mama, but I was growing more and more uncomfortable about the closeness that I had perceived to be developing between my mother and my host. While my attitude toward Lord Bradford might have softened a little since my coming to Wakefield Manor, that did not mean I had forgotten his sins against Reeve.

“
Deborah
,” Mama said. “That is a dreadful thing to say. I am quite sure that Lord Bradford would never, never force his daughter to marry someone whom she could not like!”

Her voice was so vehement that I was startled. When I turned to look at her, her face under the brim of her blue-trimmed straw hat was very white. Her breast was rising and falling quickly with her hurried breath. She was clearly very agitated.

What is going on here
? I thought.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” I said in a subdued voice. ”I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I sensed that she was making a great effort to get her emotions under control. “I’m not upset,” she lied. “It is just that I do not like to hear you say such things about a man such as Lord Bradford. They simply are not fair.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“You saw how horrified Lord Bradford was by what Robert tried to do to you,” she said. ”He would never dream of forcing his own daughter into such a situation as that.”

I had been talking about marriage, not rape.

I remembered my mother’s words to me when she had talked to me about the physical aspects of marriage, and I realized that, in her mind, the two were inevitably linked.

This thought made me feel very bleak about the kind of man my father must have been.

Mama said brightly, “Oh look, darling. Do you see that cloud formation above us? Doesn’t it look just like a seagull?”

It didn’t, but I agreed with her, and we talked of the fair for the rest of the way home.

While Mama and I planned the Wakefield Summer Fair, Lady Sophia planned my wedding. When Reeve and I first agreed to Lord Bradford’s two-week stipulation, I had assumed that we would have a quiet little ceremony followed by a small wedding breakfast.

Reeve’s aunt decreed otherwise.

“We don’t want anything to suggest that this wedding is something we are ashamed of,” she had announced in her usual dictatorial fashion as soon as the date had been firmly set. ”Reeve is the Head of the House of Lambeth and, as such, his wedding must be held in style.”

Her idea of “in style” meant inviting all of the neighboring gentry as well as relatives whom Reeve told me he had not seen since he was ten years old. The Wakefield parish church would be packed to the rafters, because naturally all of the regular parishioners would wish to be in attendance also for the most exciting nuptials that had occurred within anyone’s memory.

“I don’t mind marrying you, but I am beginning to think that it is going to be a royal pain in the neck being married to the Head of the House of Lambeth,” I said to Reeve on the eve of the great day as we walked together in the garden after dinner.

It was growing quite dark but the moon was bright enough for me to see him smile. “The old lady is getting to you, is she?”

“She is impossible, Reeve,” I said. ”If she gives me one more piece of advice about how to comport myself as Lady Cambridge, I am going to hit her over the head with her own cane.”

“Once the wedding is over, Bernard plans to pack her off home,” Reeve assured me.

I sighed. “That will be very nice indeed.”

We strolled down the pathway in the direction of the wood, side by side but not touching. I was carrying a painted fan that Mary Ann had given me this evening as a gift. The scene on it showed a group of men and women with powdered hair sitting in front of a summer-house. It was extremely pretty.

From out of nowhere, Reeve said, “I wonder why Robert isn’t coming home for the wedding.”

An alarm sounded in my brain.

“Bernard is such a stickler for appearances,” he was going on. ”I was fully expecting Robert to turn up sometime today, but he hasn’t. And apparently he isn’t coming tomorrow either.”

“How do you know that?” I asked cautiously.

“I asked Bernard.”

We were walking slowly along the garden path, and I opened my fan and regarded the picture on it, even though there really wasn’t enough light for me to see it clearly. I said, “Did you also ask Lord Bradford why Robert isn’t coming home?”

Reeve’s feet crunched on the gravel path. “Yes, I did. He said it was because he was afraid that Robert would get into trouble in Fair Haven again.”

I was still looking at the fan, refusing to meet his eyes. I knew from the tone of his voice that he didn’t believe Lord Bradford’s excuse.

He leached out, put a hand on my arm to make me stop walking, and said, “After you went to bed last night, Harry and I went into the Golden Lion.” An insect flew in front of my face and I swatted at it with my fan. Reeve went on, “When I mentioned Robert’s getting beaten up by drunken sailors, no one in the pub knew what I was talking about”

Damn
, I thought. I did not want Reeve to know about what Robert had tried to do to me.

“Perhaps the people you spoke to weren’t there when it happened,” I said.

Somewhere in the woods a nightingale began to sing.