The Veiled Heart (The Velvet Basement Book 1) (12 page)

The house sounded horribly quiet around them as Max tucked her in under his arm. They were both breathing hard. He pulled her in tighter against him, bent down, and kissed the top of her head.

“Remember, you’re getting up tomorrow.”

All she could manage was a huff at that. Yet a smile was on her face. He’d made her feel like getting up, even if it was to make up reasons to meet him.

Her chest was tight and a soft layer of sweat sat at her hairline.

“I’m broken, you know.”

Her voice was surprisingly dull. That tightness in her chest increased. Intuitively, she knew what she was going to do.

His hand squeezed her closer.

“We’re all broken in some way, Lily.”

“My name’s Miriam.”

“Nice to meet you, Miriam.”

She laughed, but the tightness was still there, holding her down, making each breath hard to take.

“You knew my name, I guess.”

He made a sound of agreement.

“You can call me Lily.”

“Thank you.”

She slapped him and he just pulled her even closer to him. His eyes were closed and his breathing deep.

The glow of the coals washed the walls around the fire surround and then seeped into grey. The oriental peonies and birds were a dreamscape that made this a place beyond all consequences.

“Freddy….”

Her head was a little light. Was she really going to do this?

“He….” No, she couldn’t.

The silence sat between them, the fire making the only sounds.

“Freddy?” His voice was soft. “I’m here for you, Lily. Nothing you can say would shock me or drive me away. Just tell me if you want, or let it lie if you want.”

The fire filled the space again. She never thought of the fire as having so many sounds.

“My husband wasn’t kind….” She tested the knowledge in the space. Max didn’t take his arm away or tense up. He remained relaxed, his palm moving back and forth over her arm.

Miriam took a deep breath in.

“You know the sound a wet towel makes when it hits? It’s a thwack. It sounds like a dull thud and slap combined, but there is nothing dull about what it feels like on the inside.” She took another deep breath in. Oh god, was she really going to do this? “We were due to go to dinner. The Morrison’s, they always outdid us. All of their food was exquisite. Freddy always liked to have something that he knew that others didn’t, especially when he felt outdone.”

Max’s hand continued to move up and down her arm, a slow gentle stroke, a gentle comfort.

“He came in when I was dressing and sent Mary away. He made me stand in the middle of the room, walked around me, and pointed out all that was wrong with me. His disappointments.”

She shuffled up higher in the bed against the headboard, yet still tucked into him. She couldn’t lie down and say what she was about to say.

“The first few hits are the worst; they are such a shock to the body. Then something happens as the hits start to build up. The body seems to find a way to lessen the impact, swallow it somehow.”

She stopped, her throat tight, and pulled in a breath. Max leaned down and kissed her head, but didn’t say anything. His body remained as it was, his hand still moving slowly up and down her arm. Her heart started to beat faster as the memories came back.

“When I first met him, I was attracted to the strength I saw in him. Later, I found out it was just cruelty. He was strong because of his station, not his character.” She wriggled again. The tightness around her throat made it impossible to swallow.

“He said—” Her voice broke.

“It’s all right.” Max kissed her head, wrapped her into his chest, held the back of her head, and spoke very softly in her ear. “Whisper it to me, Lily; let me take it from you. Whisper it to me.”

Her chest heaved. Her eyes hot as they burned with the promise of tears, but she held them back. She hadn’t cried for herself in a long time.

She lifted her palm and slapped Max on his side, thwack. “
Don’t
make a sound
,
Miriam
.
”
Her voice was twisted and tight as it came out. Her palm hit him again, thwack.
“I want you to be perfect for dinner tonight
.
”
Her palm hit again, thwack.
“
Every
delicious morsel at their table is tender
,
Miriam
.
”
Her palm came down again, thwack.
“I want to know that you are the
most tender
thing at the table.”
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
“
Just
like a perfect wife should be.”
Thwack.

“When he touched me I was so tender, so sore, yet I’d learned not to flinch. Instead I’d sucked in my breath; he liked that. He said it looked like his every touch sent ripples of shocked pleasure through me. And they did think that. His mother once pulled me aside, and said,
‘Miriam
,
dear
,
I know what you and Freddy have is special
,
but
it’s
bordering on unseemly. Perhaps you can restrain yourself in company. You may not have been a Rothbury for long
,
however
that is not how we conduct ourselves in company
.
‘
Freddy thought it was hilarious and decided that he would use me to goad his mother at every event we all attended. My beatings tripled in under a month until he lost interest.”

His arms tightened around her. The pain was there in that memory; yet up against his chest, the warm smell of him, the heat as it pulled her close, drew out the bite somehow.

“I could handle what he did. It never broke me. It was never so bad I couldn’t go out and be the lady I was supposed to be. But he tried, tried very hard to get to that last part of me.”

Max kissed her forehead, her nose, and her eyelids, all with soft, gentle kisses.

“In a way, those times were honest. He had a reason. He was angry and he punished me. It was the little things under the cover of everyday life that started to erode me.

“So you can understand why I’ll never be with a man of my class again. That kind of power over me would take someone rather exceptional. I never thought I would be with any man, until you.”

“You don’t know very much about me, Lily.” His chin rested on her head.

“I know what I need to know. You are strong, and yet gentle. You are a demandingly passionate and yet you pull back if you sense I am, well, having trouble. You are a good man, Max.”

“Not like the men of your class?”

“No.”

He shook his head. “Can you really tar them all with the same brush as your husband?”

“You have no idea. They are supremely arrogant. Lie and mislead for their own ends. They have the supreme arrogance to believe they own you and can do as they please with you. Moreover, it’s true. They can as far as society is concerned.”

She sat up and looked at him in the soft firelight.

“None of my family or friends stepped forward to help. None. I belonged to Freddy. I was his to do with as he pleased. No one would step in and dictate to him what he did with me. And, that’s not just Freddy, every man owns his wife. Think about that concept from my perspective. You’d think being wealthy would somehow be better, ironically there is a veil of silence that traps us tighter, even more so than those of other stations.”

His face was tight. His eyes sad.

“No one stepped up? Your brother? Your mother before she died?”

“None.” Her voice was small. But she didn’t cry. Crying would break into a place that was never coming out again. That soft part was where all the hopes and dreams stayed. “Surely, what he was wasn’t so much of a secret to his friends. To those who knew him, like his family. They let me marry him. They wished us well. And they would have known… at least, some of them.”

Miriam pushed her face into his chest. Held it there in case the dam of pain would burst. That was the biggest betrayal, the one from those around her. She understood there were bad people in the world. However all the good ones, how could they turn their heads, turn a blind eye to who he was?

He pulled her even closer, cupped her head in his hand, and held her against him.

“You know you and Freddy made a pretty convincing ‘love of the decade’. I’m not one for the gossip columns, yet the two of you were everywhere. Even when I was in Canada, you would show up in a paper here and there. London’s sweethearts. I know I certainly believed it.” His voice was a little tight. Like it was hard for him to say.

“It was a rather grotesque lie. I encouraged them though, the reporters and debutants, every article made Freddy happy and that usually meant he went off somewhere else to celebrate.”

Max kissed her on the side of her head. “I wish I’d known. There would have been a better ending.”

That made her huff. “For a while there I thought I could die and that would be better.”

“Shhh. Don’t say that. The idea that you would not be here now is unfathomable. You need a champion.”

She pinched him. He squeezed her and continued.

“That’s me now, Lily. No one’s going to hurt you again. I will step between you and harm’s way, and I will be there when your heart is injured.”

A lone tear slipped out before she could recall it. What was it about him, as if he knew every inch of her, as if he had walked through her shadows and mapped them? It was as if he could step into those dark places and absorb them into himself until the pain went.

Miriam pulled in a large breath, moved out of his embrace, and sat up against the headboard alongside him. Her hand slipped over his and held it.

“Freddy had a voracious appetite, which he used to let out with chorus girls and prostitutes. I can’t imagine what that would have involved given that I had a semblance of protection as his wife, and he needed to show me in public. I was lucky for that. If all his attention was on me, I would never have survived as long as I did.”

“Is that why you champion for them now?”

“The prostitutes? No, no; I owe them everything, though. And nothing I have done has been of any use. The picketing outside the sex shops, the sheaths. They are not interested in any of it.” Her voice ended in a high tight pitch.

Max pulled her over his lap and closer to his chest.

“I wanted to do something, really do something to make a difference.”

“You can join others. There are some fine women out there already fighting for the rights of women and the poor. Even if you don’t want to join a charity you could connect with them.”

“You don’t understand! This is something
I
have to do. Finding my own way, my own path is part of what I need to do.”

“We’ll find a solution.” He held her almost too tight. His lips kissed her hair. A kiss of affection, of caring. Something that made her relax and nuzzle closer.

“I don’t know what to do. That project means everything to me. Maybe I should try a different part of town?” The idea that she would have nothing to focus her mind on, nothing to keep the memories back with was horrifying. The only reason she was able to come back to London was her project. Without it, only Max was between her and the wish for oblivion.

His hand squeezed hers.

“Sweetheart, they don’t want your help. You saw what they did when you handed the sheaths out on the street. They sold them. Their clients will not use them. Unlike me.” He leaned over and kissed her. “I am an educated man who knows the benefits to both parties of a little animal gut skin between them.”

She laughed and her chest fluttered as the heaviness started to lift.

“But I want to do something. I need to do something. He was unthinkably cruel. The brunt, I know, went to women who had less than I had to protect them. The very least I can do is use his funds to try to make things better.”

“And what of you?” he said

“What do you mean?”

“What are you doing to make your life better?”

“I do my work. And now there is you.”

“Me? And what is that exactly, Lily? Your lover?”

He smiled, but it wasn’t in his eyes.

“You don’t like that I think of you like that? Many men would.”

“Push it all aside; who you are, who I am. Am I just a good time, Lily?”

Her heart thumped hard.

What could she say?

She hadn’t allowed herself to think what he was to her. A part of her had, but she hadn’t articulated, wasn’t sure she could.

“Hope. You remind me of hope. Pleasure, maybe freedom.”

His lips thinned. It wasn’t the answer he was looking for.

“Lily, there must be other women like you. Have you thought about doing something for them? What would you have done if you knew of somewhere you could go, even if your family didn’t help?”

She sat up. Pushed her hair back. “Oh.”

Thoughts flew though her mind. The idea had never occurred to her. She was so caught up in the boat and what happened on it. However, he was right. The prostitutes and fallen women out there didn’t want her help. Maybe she could help them in other ways, yet directly, as she was doing, wasn’t their way. And, of course, there was a group she had never even thought about, those like herself. Those women trapped in violent marriages with no help to get out, no options open to them.

“Oh my God, Max, why hadn’t I thought about them? There could be women out there right now experiencing what I did or worse.”

Lily leaned forward, held his face in her hands, and kissed him.

“That is perhaps the most brilliant suggestion I have ever heard.”

Max slipped his hand around her waist and pulled her back down in the bed. A strong, determined move.

“I have another brilliant idea,” he whispered.

He kissed her deep and long then looked down at her.

“I’m going to make love to you again, Lily, and I want you to come so hard that you snap the wood on the headboard. Grab hold of it and don’t let it go, no matter what I do.”

He left before dawn. He made it clear he wanted to help, that he would organize some house viewings to get her started, and that she was to send messages still if she left at night.