Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
The next morning, it happened. It was clear. Not the proof. But the master plan of how to execute the proof. And not a proof for just one integer or one type of integer. But for all integers greater than two.
She trembled. There was a moment when she thought she might cry. Which was odd because she was happy, not sad.
Her first thought, after the wash of emotion passed over her, was that she must tell Tommy. He wouldn’t understand her strategy or her master plan, but he would understand her excitement.
Suddenly, telling him was the most pressing thing in the world.
She would not be able to bear waiting. Even the anticipated applause she would receive when giving the prize lecture at the Académie des Sciences could not compare to the grin he would give her.
He might embrace her, which she was sure she would be able to tolerate for, say, fifteen or ten seconds.
She might even let him kiss her mouth.
The house was strangely empty as she came down the stairs. Yes, there was a fête today. She had forgotten. Most of the staff had been given permission to go into the village. Now where was Tommy? She went out to the stables.
Octavius was in his stall. And there was a man sitting in the stall, as well, drinking from a bottle. Phillip.
“Where’s Lord Drake?” Harry asked.
“He’s gone,” Phillip said. “He’s gone to London. He’s gone awhoring.”
Harry thought it odd Thomas had not told her he was going to London. Odder still he had not taken Octavius. And she thought Phillip had left yesterday.
Oh, well. It had been a long time since Thomas had gone to London. He likely needed the relief. It had nothing to do with her. Nothing whatsoever.
She turned and walked out of the stall, but Phillip followed her.
“And after he’s done at the brothel, I think he’s going to see the bishop.”
Harry turned and cocked her head quizzically.
“Because that’s where you got married. In London, right?”
“Yes,” Harry said.
Something was wrong with Phillip, but she wasn’t sure what it was.
It wasn’t just what he was drinking from the bottle.
It was like he was being eaten alive from the inside.
She knew that feeling, but she hadn’t had it in a long time.
Maybe not since she had had to get new clothes.
No, that was a lie. She had had it much more recently.
When Hope Dunbar had come to drink tea and had drunk chocolate instead and Harry had hurt her feelings.
She hated that she and Phillip might be alike.
“So he has to see the bishop in London,” Phillip said.
“The bishop?”
“Yes, the bishop. To get an annulment.”
Harry suddenly felt very frightened. Like when she was four and her mother died.
“Why would he be doing that?”
“Why? So he can get rid of you. Marry that redheaded Hope Dunbar, that fecund wench, the neighbor’s daughter, have children. Do what all lords do . . . make more lords.”
Harry turned away from Phillip and began to walk out of the stable, needing to get away. He grabbed her left arm and spun her around to face him.
“You bitch.”
Harry jerked her arm, but Phillip’s grip stayed fast.
“You turned him against me. You told him lies. You made him hate me.”
Harry jerked her arm again. Phillip caught her right hand and pulled her towards him. He started mashing her bandaged hand. His face was inches from her. His breath smelled of whisky and rotten meat.
“Everything was fine before you,” Phillip said with a sneer.
Harry tried not to show the pain he was causing her hand. She kept her voice calm.
“Then you should be happy he is seeking an annulment.”
“No! No! Because he can marry again.” Phillip squeezed her right hand.
Bright-white pain radiated up from her hand to her shoulder, her neck, her head.
“And have a son. And I’ll have nothing. You and your virginity!
If you had let him bed you then he couldn’t get the annulment.
But he probably couldn’t even get it up with you. You ugly chit. You whore.”
Phillip had now said two contradictory things. Her need to point that out overrode her pain.
“Which is it? Am I a virgin or a whore?”
Phillip pushed Harry to the ground, still holding her. He fell on top of her, crushing her.
“I’ll . . . make . . . you . . . a whore.”
He was breathing heavily. Harry struggled under him.
He was not an overly large man, but he weighed at least six stone more than she did.
He pinned her left arm under her own body.
He let go of her right hand and tore the front of her dress open.
She tried to hit him with her bandaged hand, but she found herself slapping at the side of his head uselessly.
He pulled at her corset, but the material was too thick and unyielding. He swore and began fumbling with his own trousers, pulling them down.
Harry tried to find purchase on the ground with her feet so she could push up and out from under him.
Or she could bring her leg up between his and put her knee in his groin.
But her feet slid on the straw. She then started using her heels on the back of his calves, kicking down as hard as she could.
This opened her legs, and she felt something push against her inner thighs. Then against her, higher up. No.
She jerked her head and aimed for his nose with the top of her skull, but he dodged her. He raised his left hand, which had been in his trousers, and struck her in the jaw.
“You,” strike to the temple, “vicious,” strike to the jaw, “little,” strike to the nose, “bitch.”
Left-handed like Tommy.
Harry felt warm stickiness from her nose.
Phillip hadn’t given her much choice. She used all her strength to try to squirm away and got her left arm free and reached for her bosom.
Phillip fumbled into the straw off to the side, feeling for something.
Harry put her bandaged right hand to her bosom.
Phillip found what he had been looking for in the straw. He raised it up. It gleamed. It was a horse shoe.
Despite her bandaged hand, she got her birthday present open.
And then things were dark and quiet.