Chapter 13 #3
“Heaven, and any man of experience,” commented the earl in his mellow voice.
He sounded calm, but Chastity could tell he was displeased by this development.
She knew then that her instinct had been correct.
Despite his violence, despite the fact that he now thought her wanton, Fort was her security in this situation.
The earl took two majestic steps forward until he stood before her, then rested his hands on the knob of his cane.
“You sadden me, daughter. I confess, I am at a loss. To see you here in such shameless garments, running from the protection of your home . . . And I fear you have infected Verity with your wickedness. You have not come here in search of your sister. You have brought her here in a petty attempt to spite me.”
Chastity was as terrified as she had expected to be, but she found she wasn’t paralyzed by her father anymore. Her wits were still working. Her hope here was to make her father reveal something to Fort.
“Why would my bringing Verity here spite you, Father?”
A slight narrowing of his eyes and mouth acknowledged the change in her, but he lost none of his dignity.
“For my dear daughter to go anywhere for help other than to me is a blow. I can believe that Vernham may have done something to make Verity flee her home, but surely she fled to Walgrave Towers to seek my aid. It was you, you unfortunate creature, who persuaded her to this mad enterprise. What did you hope to gain?”
Chastity almost fell into the clever trap and admitted the plan. “I came to Maidenhead,” she parried, “because I knew if Verity went anywhere other than Walgrave Towers it would be here, to the man she has always loved. Perhaps she thought you would yet again prevent her from marrying him.”
“Prevent?” queried the earl in astonishment. “She chose freely to marry Sir William.”
“Freely?” Chastity scoffed. “You bullied her into it, you hypocrite, just as you tried to bully me into marrying his brother!”
The earl shook his head sadly. “Come here and present your right hand, palm up.”
Chastity felt a chill run through her. She’d played into his hands. Before her masquerade as a boy, before her freewheeling time with Cyn Malloren, she would never have spoken to her father thus in any circumstances. But she’d known it would come to the cane sooner or later.
“Father,” said Fort in muted protest, though Chastity could see he was shocked by her words.
“My dear boy,” said the earl sadly, “she is wild and growing wilder. I cannot permit it. It pains me to beat her, but you see for yourself that gentler means are useless.” He looked at Chastity again. “Obey, or you will be forced.”
She obeyed, but he was trying to pretend this was a new development and she wouldn’t allow that, no matter what it cost her. “It’s all right, Father,” she said pertly, “You taught me the rules while you were trying to beat me into marrying your friend Henry Vernham. I haven’t forgotten.”
She walked forward and held out her hand, cursing the fact that it trembled. It hadn’t shaken the first time. She hadn’t known then how much it would hurt.
The cane slashed down and fire leaped across her palm. She clutched it to her chest, fighting tears.
“Let us hope there will be no more impudence,” said the earl. “You are never to question my righteousness as a parent. Never. Now, you will tell me where Verity is.”
“I don’t know.”
She saw him register her honesty, but he was a shrewd man. He put the knob of the cane under her chin to force her eyes to meet his. “You will tell me then where you saw her last.”
She hesitated and knew it. “At Easter at Walgrave Towers.”
The earl turned to his son. “She’s lying.”
“Yes,” said Fort. “For God’s sake, Chastity, why are you doing this? Verity could be in terrible danger, and her child even more so. Tell us, so we can protect her.”
Chastity gave up the pretense. “Only if Father promises to let her marry Nathaniel.”
“What nonsense,” the earl said. “There is no question of any marriage until her year of mourning is up.”
She forced herself to look unflinchingly into his eyes. “Promise that you will permit it then.”
Red touched his cheeks, a flare of warning. “I will promise nothing. Do you seek to bargain with me, you impudent hussy? You will tell me your sister’s whereabouts simply out of filial obedience, and trust me to arrange her welfare.”
“As when you married her to Vernham?” she sneered.
“Extend your right hand.”
Chastity’s lips trembled as she obeyed. The cane slashed down on the previous welt, and a cry escaped her.
The earl fell silent. Chastity waited. Clutching her burning hand, tears running down her cheeks.
She knew it could only get worse. This was nothing, but it didn’t feel like nothing.
How long could she hold out before telling all?
How much of a start did Cyn and Nathaniel need?
She glanced at Fort, wondering if he would help her, but she had lost him again when he realized she did know Verity’s whereabouts.
Why, she wondered, was her father so desperate to find Verity?
Simply from the need to control? It was possible, and yet her instinct said no.
This desperate search had the same strangeness as Verity’s marriage to Sir William, and Chastity’s proposed one to Henry Vernham. Something underlay all of it.
Unlikely as it seemed, Vernham must have had a hold over the Earl of Walgrave.
What? What?
Fort came over and took her stinging hand in a gentle hold. He moved her a little way from their father, which was a good sign. “Hurts like the devil, doesn’t it? Do you mean he did this to try to force you to marry Vernham?”
“And other things . . .” Chastity looked over to where the earl was talking quietly with Lindle. That boded no good. “Fort,” she said quietly, “there’s something wrong about this, something that doesn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t affect the fact that we have to find Verity.”
“She’s safe,” she assured him. “Honestly. Staying with a very pleasant and proper family.”
Lindle left the room, and Walgrave came over to Chastity and Fort. “Has she told you?” he asked. “Often a little kindness after harshness works wonders.”
“She says Verity is safe with a proper family.”
Chastity flicked Fort a glance, but knew that this maneuver hadn’t been planned, at least on his part.
“Indeed,” said the earl. “That relieves my paternal anxiety considerably. It will only be assuaged, however, when I am able to clasp my eldest daughter and my only grandchild to my heart. The direction, please.”
Chastity shook her head.
“And why are you intent on keeping Verity from me?”
Chastity knew it was impossible to answer that question without offending his righteousness as a parent. Though it took more courage than she knew she possessed, she extended her poor, abused hand.
The earl raised his cane, but only to put it under her trembling hand, rubbing gently against the knuckles.
“You, I fear, are possessed of a devil, and it will take more time than we have here to drive it from you. Fear not, I will attend to it in time.” He let that promise sink home.
“But my sweet Verity? What has caused her to so distrust her father? Eh?”
Chastity was keyed up for pain, would almost welcome it to have it over with.
“Well?” asked the earl. “Tell me how you turned Verity against me.”
“She needed no turning,” said Chastity. “She did not flee to Walgrave Towers, but to the cottage. She had no desire to seek your help.”
Still the blow did not come. She knew this trick too. This waiting, which was almost worse than the pain.
The earl had explained it to her once during those terrible days. When he’d given in to rage and beaten her severely, the effect had been strange. It had fed her numb strength and he knew it.
“Brutality drives some people beyond reach,” he had said. “It also leaves evidence that can be inconvenient. On the other hand, quite small amounts of pain can break a strong man if properly applied.”
Now the earl put the cane softly on her palm and rubbed with it. She gritted her teeth against the sting. “And why did Verity have no desire to seek my help?”
Verity had cut herself off from her father because of his treatment of Chastity, and only secondarily because he would oppose her marriage to Nathaniel.
Chastity could tell him this, but an intensity in the earl’s manner caught her.
What made this question so important? Would he say something revealing?
He tapped the cane on her hand, demanding an answer.
At the third tap, Chastity’s nerve broke. “Because of how you treated me.”
He studied her searchingly, then used the cane to push her hand down and walked away. Chastity’s knees almost gave way, but she remained standing, knowing it wasn’t over.
There were no sounds from outside this isolated house, and it felt as if everyone in the room held their breath. Chastity began to count. She had found it the only way to avoid being driven to desperation by her father’s calculated use of silence.
She had reached sixty-five when the earl turned.
“A petty reason for risking her life and that of her child. Very unlike Verity. I fear you must have spun her a tissue of lies. Ah, well, it will become clear when we find her.” The door opened.
“And here is Lindle with some more appropriate clothing. We will leave you to change, daughter, and resume our conversation when you have a more fitting appearance.”
Chastity was beyond reasoning what Fort made of this, but she noted his reluctance to leave her. He was firmly shepherded out. The key turned in the lock and she was alone. She collapsed to sit on the floor and blow on her stinging hand.
The punishment had been nothing. It hadn’t even been an attempt to force the truth out of her but, as he said, a reaction to her lack of filial respect.
But it had also been a way of priming her for what was to come, of reminding her how it had been the last time, when her palms had blistered, and Lindle had held her hands up because she could no longer force herself to do it.
When her back, and buttocks, and legs had been a mass of weals.
And this time it would be worse. It would be worse because he was more ruthless, and more desperate. This time he wouldn’t care if he scarred her, or did her permanent harm. She didn’t know why he was so desperate, but she could sense it. And he would soon be back.