His hand, the fingers broad and spatulate, was suddenly against her cheek. His palm was smooth, softer than her own hands now were, hard worked with the many tasks of’ the household. She had not felt she had any right to complain. There had never been bitterness in her heart about her role, only gratitude that she and the boy were warmly dressed, sheltered from the cold cut of both winter wind and cruel gossip, and well fed. He had never begrudged their care. Despite his cruelty, he, too, it seemed, kept to his bargains.
“You think about it, Mary,” he suggested, his fingers sliding slowly over the smooth white skin of her neck, coming to rest over her shoulder, his thumb making caressing movements just over the swell of her breast.
She could not prevent her shiver, and again his lips lifted into that suggestive smile. “Think very carefully about what you want. And about what you are willing to give up. I think Richard would have à hard time adjusting to the rough-and-tumble of school. So many do, you know. I even heard of a child who hanged himself. Too sensitive, they said, but if Richard had brothers… Perhaps a tutor might be the solution, if there were other children.”
Mary said nothing, her eyes held with deliberate courage on his, unprotesting of his hand’s caress. He smiled again, at whatever was revealed in her rigid features.
“Be sure you bank the fire, Mary.” he said. His hand squeezed her shoulder, the pressure painful with the brute strength of his fingers. He stepped beyond her, stopping only to pick up the crystal decanter of port. Unmoving, she listened to his footsteps fade down the hall, to the room he had shared with Abigail.
Only when she heard the door close did she allow her body to sag, almost gasping for air as would an exhausted runner. She moved slowly to the fire, but instead of tending to the task he had assigned, she watched the golden flames blur and disappear behind her tears. She blinked, determined to clear the unfamiliar moisture.
Her hand trembled like an old woman’s when she put it against the small mantel. Suddenly, though she had never wavered in the path she had chosen, or been forced by fate to choose, her proud head bent, her forehead allowed to rest against the back of the hand that gripped the narrow mantel.
Her father had often promised that one was never given more than there was courage to bear, but for the first time Mary Winters wondered if the strength of her resolve and the level of her endurance would suffice.
The cold disturbed her, so she turned, trying to find the familiar warmth of the piled quilts. The fire must have gone out, she thought drowsily, her fingers searching for the bedclothes that somehow had become so disarranged as to leave her shivering, uncovered to the winter’s draft.
She was not yet awake, so when her fingers encountered the unexpected solidness of a body above her, she screamed.
She was dreaming, she thought. Only a nightmare. Like Traywick’s hands, huge red spiders fluttering over her body in the darkness. And then his hand moved upward, pushing against the bunched material of her cotton rail, thrusting his knee between the two of hers, his hand under her gown, cold against the bed-warmed skin of her thigh. She was awake now, awake enough to think that she must not scream again. It would frighten Richard, sleeping in the nursery next door.
“No,” she said, pushing downward against those blunt fingers with both her hands. She held her knees together, one pressed tightly on either side of his, but then she could do nothing about his mouth, descending over her breast. His lips fastened over her nipple and, reacting to that invasion, she turned her body, fighting against his massiveness, against his sheer bulk. She felt his mouth lose contact, and the hope that small victory gave her added strength to her will. He must not, she thought. He must not.
With his free hand, he caught her wrists and wrenched them above her head. The hand that was under her gown, tracing coldly over her thigh, continued inexorably to its destination.
“No,” she said again.
“Hush, Mary,” he whispered, his lips on her cheek. She could smell the sweet-sick odor of the wine on his breath, hot and fetid against her skin.
“No,” she begged, her slender body bucking under his weight, trying to push him off.
“You’ll wake the child,” he warned hoarsely. His mouth found hers, and he pushed his tongue inside, the soured taste of wine sickening. His tongue was too large, too strong, like the body that strained above her. It was choking her. Moving inside as the spider hand was moving now against her lower body, his fingers painfully digging into the soft flesh of her thighs. Not a caress, but a punishment. And she thought of the bruises that had always marked Abigail’s frail body.
Unbidden and unwanted, as weakening as the realization of how little control she had over what was happening, came the image of Nick Stanton’s fingers drifting with sensuous grace across her body. This was not love making. This was assault, and Mary knew suddenly that if she agreed to what he urged, no matter whether anyone else ever knew, she, at least, would always know the desecration of those vows she had made. Till death us do part…
She bit the tongue that pushed vilely against hers, bit hard and tasted his blood, and felt the bile rise in her throat as the blessed air rushed in where there had been only the hot stench of his breath.
“No,” she said aloud. Fighting more strongly, determined now that he should not take what was not his. “Get off,” she ordered. Her right wrist suddenly came free from his hold, the pain of her teeth perhaps having surprised him enough that he loosened his grip. She put her palm flat against his chest and pushed, and then her legs came up, knees struggling to get under his weight, trying to throw him off her.
The blow that smashed against her mouth and nose was casual, not delivered in anger, but as unthinking as if one were swatting at a summer’s fly, brushing aside something that dared to annoy. His strength was enough, however, that her face went numb with the force of it, and she tasted blood again, her own, her lips cut against her teeth. There was no pain, not yet, only shock, and unthinkingly she cried out. She had never been hit in her life, not even as a child. The unexpectedness of it was more painful than the physical force.
Neither was aware of the opening door.
“What are you doing to Mary?” Richard’s treble piped from the doorway.
Mary felt the momentary hesitation in Tray wick’s hands. He lifted away from her chest, turning to look over his shoulder in automatic response to the boy’s presence.
Would he hurt the child? she wondered, and the hated image of the descending cane came into her mind. Panic made her strong, and some primitive instinct for survival taught her what to do. She raised her legs, their slender whiteness a flash of motion in the darkness of the bedroom. Her bare feet made contact with his body, and she kicked with all her strength, somehow throwing his huge body off hers.
Traywick had not been expecting it, but he was more agile that his bulk suggested, and somehow he managed to land on his feet. He was off balance, however, and he took several staggering steps backward in a futile effort to right himself.
They watched, child and woman, as almost in slow motion Traywick began to tumble backward, toward the small light of the nighttime fire, carefully banked before Mary had lain down to sleep. His head cracked with a force that was audible against the edge of the mantel and then Marcus Traywick fell, the back of his skull landing hard again on the stones of the hearth.
His head bounced with the force of the blow so that, unconscious now, he came to rest with his cheek against the black metal of the andiron that held the banked fire. The scent of singed hair and the sickening aroma of burning flesh pervaded the tiny chamber.
Mary was stunned by the unexpectedness of his stillness, and then she realized what the smell meant. She jumped up from the disordered bed and rushed to kneel beside the man who lay unmoving on the hearth. She grasped his hair, pulling his face away from its contact with the searing metal. She found she was panting with the exertion of the fight.
The only thought that moved through her brain was that