Chapter Nineteen
Livy
Livy had expected they would throw the three of them into the carriage and continue on horseback. That way, she and Cilla could persuade Beryl to untie them.
No such luck. Jasper and Curston crowded into the carriage, and Curston sat between her and Beryl, while Jasper took the back facing seat alongside Cilla.
Livy hoped they were not traveling some distance, or over a rough road.
Cilla had never been able to manage for long in a backward facing seat, and she was gagged, so if she became sick…
Frightened for her sister, Livy tried to speak, to warn the men, but Curston laughed at the noises she made.
“I cannot understand you, Olivia,” he said. “Stop trying, or I’ll give you something to make a noise about. Jasper, I might keep her gagged until she learns to obey me. What do you think? No one needs a wife who is a scold.”
“She’s trying to tell you…” Beryl began, but Jasper hissed, “Shut your mouth, Beryl, or I’ll gag you, too.”
Curston put his arm around Livy and pulled her against his body, and then pawed at her breasts.
“They’re as big as they look,” he said to Jasper, sounding delighted.
Fear, disgust, and anger made a nauseating mix.
Livy’s gut might prove to be as treacherous as her sister’s.
Though it would serve this cur right if she choked on her own vomit right in his lap, she forced herself to swallow the reaction.
She would live to see him suffer for this, dammit.
“Here, Curston, let her go,” Jasper ordered. “You cannot paw her like that in front of my sister.”
“But we agreed that the sooner—” Curston began.
Jasper interrupted. “Not in front of my sister, I said. We’ll have to wait until we get to the cottage. We have plenty of time. Even if they find the footman, Mama and your father will stop people from following us. And even if someone does come after us, they won’t know where to go.”
Jasper had a thread of decency left. Was there hope in that? Not enough to rely on. But Henry was conscious. He winked at me. With luck, he will get help and pursuit will not be far behind. Livy was holding to that thought with all her might.
“That’s true,” Curston acknowledged. “Very well. Stop the carriage. If I can’t have my way with your cousin, I’m going to ride.”
“Good idea. Let’s tie Beryl up so she can’t untie the others, and I’ll come too.”
Jasper banged on the hatch between the carriage interior and the coachman, and ordered the carriage stopped, then Curston descended, leaving the carriage door open.
“Cilla gets sick in carriages,” Beryl whimpered to Jasper. “Please take her gag off, Jasper.” Thank goodness Beryl spoke up. Livy had been terrified for her sister.
“You’re making that up. I’ve traveled with her before.”
“Short distances, and when she is facing the way carriage is going,” Beryl insisted. “Please, Jasper. You can’t marry her if she chokes to death.”
Good girl, Beryl.
Cilla, her eyes wide above the gag, nodded vigorously.
Curston climbed back aboard with a coil of rope. Jasper reported, “We need to put Cilla in the forward-facing seat and take the gag off. Beryl says she gets sick in carriages.”
“We’ll tie Beryl up first.” They did so, Curston binding her hands behind her back and Jasper tying her ankles together. Then Jasper untied Cilla’s gag, lifted her, and put her on the other carriage seat.
“Me, too,” Livy did her best to say, but could only make noises. Nonetheless, Jasper understood and went to undo her gag, but Curston stopped him. “Not Olivia. Let her remain gagged. I don’t trust her not to be plotting against us.”
He was quite right, too, the dastard. But if he thought Cilla would not be plotting against them, he didn’t know her at all.
Moments later, they were gone, and the carriage was underway again. The three girls looked at one another. “Beryl,” Cilla said. “I mean no offense to you, but I am not going to agree to marry your brother under any circumstances. And Livy will not agree to marry Curston, will you Livy?”
Livy nodded, which was the best she could do. And if he went through some form of ceremony anyway, she would run at her first opportunity, and Pa would help her to have the marriage annulled.
“It won’t be a legal marriage, Beryl,” Cilla explained, “if we do not consent, or if our consent is forced from us.”
“I can see why you do not want to marry Jasper,” Beryl admitted. “I would love to have you as a sister, but I would not want to be married to someone like Jasper. As for Curston…!” She shuddered, and Livy agreed wholeheartedly.
“Then we can count on your help?” Cilla insisted. “If there is a chance to escape, you will help us to take it?”
“Mama wants this marriage,” Beryl said, doubtfully.
“She says we would be out in the streets if it were not for Uncle Horace. She says she does not want to be going cap in hand to your father all the time. We need your dowry, Cilla, for Jasper cannot seem to mend his ways, and he is very expensive.”
She turned to Livy. “And she wants your dowry for Lord Curston, Livy, for he and his son are very expensive, too. I think they gamble a lot. Mama, too. Uncle Horace told her he will pay for her servants and her clothes, but not for her card parties.”
Tears filled Beryl’s eyes. “She says they are debts of honor, and she has had to borrow to pay them. If she does not pay the loan people, we will be out on the streets. I don’t want to be out on the streets, Livy, Cilla. Where would we sleep? Where would we keep our gowns?”
Beryl had no idea, obviously. If Livy could have spoken, she would have told her that she and her sisters, without Pa’s help, would be working for a living—as governesses, perhaps.
Of very young children, for none of the three had much of an education.
Working in a respectable position, and fighting of the advances of an employer or an employer’s son.
Or worse. Working in a non-respectable position, where accepting advances was part of the job.
Gentle Cilla was instead explaining that, even if Pa withdrew his support from Aunt Ginny, as he had from Jasper, he would continue to keep his nieces fed, clothed, and housed.
“It is foolish, what your brother is doing,” she pointed out.
“He won’t get his hands on my dowry by forcing me to the altar.
I am not of age, so the marriage is invalid even if I consented, and I do not.
Anyway, without Papa’s consent, he is under no obligation to pay the dowry to my husband or to Livy’s, for that matter. ”
Beryl shook her head. “Mama said he will have to pay the dowry, once people know that you and Jasper have been alone together. For days!”
And nights. Livy shuddered.
“He will not do it,” said Cilla, firmly. “Not to mention that, if for some reason I am unsuccessful in getting the marriage annulled, I shall very likely finish up smothering my unwanted husband with a pillow. I know he is your brother, Beryl, but I really do not like him.”
Perhaps not so gentle Cilla, then. Livy heartily approved of the sentiment.
“Oh dear,” said Beryl.
“Can we count on your help, Beryl?” Cilla insisted, “Or must we fight you as well as those two villains?”
“Oh dear,” Beryl said again. “Oh, very well then. Yes, Cilla. You and Livy can count on me.”
Not, Livy thought, without our eyes wide open. Beryl had always been the most suggestible of their cousins, and she was frightened of her mother and brother both.
“You and Livy can count on me” lasted until the carriage stopped outside a little cottage surrounded by trees.
Jasper untied Beryl so she could walk. The coachman, another servant who appeared to be Curston’s valet, and the fifth man, who was obviously a groom, were sent off to rooms above the stables.
Jasper and Curston carried the sisters inside.
“Beryl, you can have the cook’s room,” Jasper said. “It is off the kitchen. There are only two other bedchambers.”
“Can I not share one of them with Livy and Cilla, while you and Lord Curston share the other?” Beryl asked.
Jasper rolled his eyes. “I am sharing with Cilla, and Curston is sharing with Livy, you silly girl.”
“Cilla says she will not marry you, and that her father will not give you her dowry even if she does,” Beryl reported. “She said if she cannot get an annulment, she will smother you with your pillow.”
If looks could set one on fire, Cilla would have gone up in smoke from the glare that Jasper shot at her.
“You shall marry me, Lucilla Wintergreen. If you do not, you will be ruined. You will have to retreat from Society, and everyone will shun you. You’ll never find a decent husband.
As for your father, Mama says he will not wish to see you living in poverty.
He will have to give me your dowry, or you will suffer. ”
Cilla snorted. “Do you think I care what a lot of spoilt aristocrats think?” she said. “As for a decent husband, Jasper, do you think you will be one? For I do not. You are a spoilt brat with no talents or self-control, who only wants his own way.”
“Why, you…!” Jasper took an angry step toward the couch on which he had deposited Cilla, but hitting a bound woman was apparently a step too far, even for him.
“Lock your sister in her room and let’s get to it,” Curston said. “The sooner they have no choice, the better.”
“You can bed me,” Cilla commented. “You are stronger than I am and you can force me. But you cannot force me to consent to marriage with you. Perhaps I shall suffer, Jasper, as you say. But you are facing hurt that you have never conceived. And this applies to you, Curston, too. Force us, and my father shall destroy you. The Sanderson brothers, too, shall not cease until they have taken everything from you, and you are forced to dress in rags and beg in the streets.”