Chapter 1 #4
“Anne,” she said at length, leaning forward slightly, “forgive me, but there are some particulars we ought to understand if we are to help you properly. I do not wish to distress you further, but we must know what we are protecting you from.”
Anne drew in a shaky breath and nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Are you—that is, have you a family? Parents who will be searching for you?”
Anne's face grew tense. She looked down at the rough wool of the blanket. “My parents are dead.”
Jane looked at Elizabeth, her eyes brimming with sympathy. Outside, the wind rattled the door.
“I have a brother,” she added after a moment. “He is my guardian.”
“He does not know where you are?”
“No.” The word came out barely audible. “He was away from London. Visiting—visiting friends in Leicestershire.”
Jane's brow furrowed. “He is unaware of what has happened?”
Anne shook her head. Her throat worked, but no sound came out.
“We need not speak of everything at once,” Jane said gently. “Perhaps—”
“No.” Anne's voice was stronger now, though it trembled. “No, you must know. You are risking so much, and you do not even know—” She stopped, pressing her lips together.
Elizabeth waited.
“I was living in my own establishment in London with a companion. I am fifteen years old,” Anne said at last.
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the wind seemed to pause.
Jane's hand, resting on the edge of the bench. Her knuckles were white.
Elizabeth's expression did not change, but something shifted behind her eyes. “Fifteen,” she repeated slowly.
Anne nodded, unable to meet their gazes.
“The man who claims to be your husband,” Elizabeth said, her voice even. “How old is he?”
“Eight and twenty, I think.” Anne's voice dropped to a whisper. “Perhaps nine and twenty.”
Elizabeth stood abruptly, walking to the small window. She stood there for a long moment, her back to the room, her shoulders rigid.
Jane remained perfectly still.
“Your brother,” Jane said at length. “He did not consent to any marriage?”
“No.” Anne looked up, her eyes desperate. “He knew nothing of it. Nothing at all.”
“But this man—” Elizabeth turned from the window. “He must have approached you somehow—made your acquaintance. How did that come to pass?”
Anne's hands began to shake. “I knew him as a child. He is George Wickham. His father was steward to my father. He grew up on my father’s estate, but he came to meet me again through my companion. Mrs. Younge. She—she allowed him to call.”
“With your brother's knowledge?”
“No.” The word was almost inaudible. “Only when my brother was away.”
Elizabeth exchanged a glance with Jane. Neither spoke for a moment.
“How often did he call?” Elizabeth asked finally.
“Several times. Perhaps six.” Anne's voice was distant now, as though she were recounting something that had happened to someone else. “Mrs. Younge was not always present. She insisted it was quite proper since we had been acquainted for many years.”
Jane's expression grew troubled. “Your brother—when will he return to London?”
“I do not know.” A tear slipped down Anne's cheek. “He may be there already. He may have discovered I am gone. He will be—” Her voice broke. “He will be so angry.”
“Angry with you?” Jane asked softly.
Anne nodded, fresh tears spilling over. “He trusted me. He left me with Mrs. Younge and I—I was such a fool.”
“You were betrayed,” Elizabeth said, her voice hard. “By a woman paid to protect you.”
“But I should have known.” Anne's voice rose, edged with panic. “I should have seen—”
“You are fifteen,” Elizabeth interrupted. “How were you to have known?”
Anne fell silent, staring at her hands.
The fire crackled. Outside, the wind had died down a little.
“This man who called upon you,” Jane said after a moment. “What was his manner toward you?”
Anne's face flushed. “He was—kind. At first.”
She stopped. The silence stretched.
“What did he speak of?” Jane prompted gently.
“Of—of ordinary things. Music. Books.” Anne's fingers clutching the blanket. “He said I had excellent taste. That my brother kept me too sheltered. That I was not a child anymore, though my brother refused to see it.”
“Did you believe him?” Elizabeth asked.
Anne looked up, her eyes red. “I wanted to. I wanted to believe someone saw me as grown up—as more than just a girl who needed managing.”
Jane's expression was infinitely gentle. “Did you form an attachment to him? Did you believe yourself in love?”
The question hung in the air. Anne opened her mouth, closed it again.
“I do not know,” she whispered at last. “I thought—perhaps I did. For a time. He was so—” She broke off, shaking her head. “He kissed me once. Only once. I thought—I believed—” Anne hung her head.
“Mrs. Younge said it was natural,” Anne continued, her voice barely audible. “That young ladies often formed attachments. That my brother need not know until—until I was certain of my feelings.”
Jane's expression remained neutral, encouraging without judgement.
“Then one day she said we were going to the dressmaker.” Anne's breathing quickened. “She said my brother had sent word. That I needed new gowns for—for a ball at Matlock House.”
Her hands shook harder. Jane reached out, steadying them.
“But we did not go to the dressmaker,” Anne whispered.
Elizabeth and Jane exchanged a glance.
“What happened?” Elizabeth asked quietly.
“There was a rented chaise outside- not my carriage. She said there were repairs, but it was not so. We went to a tavern, in a part of London I had never seen. It was not the sort of place a lady would go to. He was waiting there. And—and a man who claimed he was a clergyman.” Anne's voice had gone flat, reciting facts.
“There was a paper. A licence, he said. With my name on it. He showed me—told me to sign.”
“Did you agree?” Jane asked softly.
“I said no.” The words came out stronger than expected. “I told them—I said it clearly. Yet they did not—” Her voice broke.
Jane waited.
Anne stared into the distance. “He said it did not matter. That the paper made it binding, regardless.”
The silence that followed was heavy.
“After the ceremony,” Elizabeth said, “You said he took you to an inn. Did he—that is, did he claim his rights as a husband?”
Anne's face paled. She stared at her hands for a long moment.
“He tried,” she whispered at length. “I—I attempted to resist. He was so strong. He put his hand over my mouth to silence me.”
She stopped. Her breathing had grown rapid.
“Then?” Jane asked gently.
“I hurt him and he—he cried out. Quite loudly.” Anne's voice was barely audible. “Mrs. Younge must have heard, for she came to the door, calling through it that he would rouse the entire establishment. The landlord would come asking questions.”
The air in the room had been stagnant, thick with the smell of beeswax and the cloying, winy reek of his breath. He had not merely stepped close. He had loomed, a sudden wall of damp wool and brutal intent cutting off the candlelight.
“Come now, my dear, do not be difficult,” he had murmured, but the words were slurred, heavy with Madeira.
When she opened her mouth to object, he moved with shocking speed. His hand did not simply cover her mouth. It clamped down, a brutal weight crushing her lips against her teeth. The calloused ridge of his palm pressed her nose flat, cutting off her air at once.
Panic was a cold spike in her chest. She thrashed, her silks rustling loudly in the silence of the chamber, but his other arm was around her waist, pinning her against the sagging bed.
The want of air made the edges of her vision swim.
She was drowning in the smell of stale tobacco and his sweating skin.
He squeezed harder, his fingers digging brutally into her cheeks, trying to force her submission.
In his drunken haste, his grip shifted. As she gasped convulsively against his palm, trying to draw breath, his thick index finger slipped past the barrier of her front teeth and hooked deep into the fleshy pocket of her cheek.
Instinct took over. It was primal, terrifying, and absolute.
She did not merely bite down. Her jaw locked. She clamped her back teeth together with every ounce of frantic strength in her body.
She felt the resistance instantly—the hot, yielding slide of skin giving way. Yet she did not stop. She bore down harder, grinding her jaw together.
The shudder through her jaw was—a sickening, wet crunch. A thick, metallic reek filled her mouth—salt, copper, and something fouler, something ancient.
He bellowed, a guttural roar of shock and agony that shattered the quiet of the house.
He yanked his hand back with violent force, nearly pulling her teeth out with it. Cursing, he rose. She sprang from the bed and staggered back against the wall, gasping, wiping her mouth frantically with the back of her sleeve.
He stood swaying in the dim light, staring at his hand.
In the gloom, it looked black, blood already welling thick and fast from the ragged, semi-circular tear where her teeth had sunk deep.
He looked up at her, his eyes wide and glassy with disbelief, the lust entirely replaced by stunned fury and the very beginning of fear.
The rap upon the door was loud and frantic, the voices angry.
He shoved her onto the chair, then grabbed the half-empty bottle from the table and swallowed all the amber liquid remaining.
She cowered there, the metallic sense of his blood still coating the back of her throat.
“They quarrelled,” Anne continued. “He was—he was angry with her. She said he must wait, that he was drawing too much notice. When she left, he began drinking. He said when morning came he would—” She hung her head and swallowed several times.
Her shoulders trembled. “Yet he drank more and more until he collapsed upon the bed.”
Report from Meryton
The tack room door burst open, admitting a gust of wind and snow along with Kitty and Lydia, both flushed and breathless.