Chapter Eleven #2
She nodded. “I’d met Jean-Claude a year earlier, when he attended to my mother, tried to give her laudanum for the pain, but she was having none of it.
She told him that she trusted her herbs and teas more than anything else, and that they would suffice, for she way dying regardless of what she took. ”
“I can understand that. For myself, I limit my own intake; it’s far too addicting.” Shadows reflected in his blue eyes. “I take it Jean-Claude was very different from me.”
“Yes, he was.” Which was one of the reasons why being with the duke was so confusing.
“Jean-Claude was slighter and a bit shorter, but aside from the physical differences, he was kind, an observer of life. He’d chosen to become a doctor, went to medical school in England, for he wanted to serve the people in the small villages. They were sadly neglected in that way.”
“Did you know immediately you would be wed to him?”
“I did. It was easy to be with him. He was so kind, so understanding and considerate, so passionate about his wish to help others.” She turned her back on the duke, for she couldn’t bear to see the pity in his eyes. “After a handful of times in his company, when he asked for my hand, I accepted.”
“That sounds reasonable. Women are attracted to good men.” A trace of bitterness wove through his tone. “I’m certain your parents were pleased.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.” Eloise nodded. “My mother was happy. We talked about having a simple ceremony so she could witness it before…” Her voice broke, and rubbed her hands up and down her arms as a chill went over her.
“Then that January came along. Jean-Claude and I were to be married in the spring. It wouldn’t prove an exciting union, but it would be a happy one. ”
“You deserve at least that.” Even though his voice was graveled, she didn’t turn to look at him.
“Everything changed when a French regiment came through the village.” Her chin trembled, and for a distraction, Eloise stared out the window at the unrelenting rain.
It matched her mood. “They were quite demanding, ordering everyone to do their bidding—feed them, house them, fetch them clothing and supplies. There wasn’t anything those men didn’t take, including blankets, food, livestock, clothing…
” Tears welled in her eyes as memories of that time came flooding back, and it was almost as if she were right back in that farmhouse when two officers came bursting through the door.
“If anyone in the village didn’t comply, they were beaten, at times shot and their homes burned down; many of the young men were forced to join the army because numbers were low. ”
“I have seen the brutality of the French firsthand. It was appalling, and went beyond the excuse of war.”
“Yes.” Pressing her trembling lips together, Eloise rested her palms on the window glass.
The coolness there seeped into her skin and worked to soothe her turbulent emotions.
“A handful of them set up housekeeping with my mother and I. We were consigned to the common room, essentially reduced to servants for them. The two officers were arrogant and demanding.” Tears sounded in her words and welled in her eyes.
“But when they were drunk, everything got out of hand.”
“You needn’t continue if this is causing you too much pain.” The low rumble of his voice came from directly behind her.
“I must, though; I’ve carried this with me for far too long.
” She looked at his reflection in the window.
“One night, I was yanked from the pallet on the floor I shared with my mother. It was the middle of the night; I was disoriented and exhausted from catering to their every whim. The man shoved me into the room we used as a parlor.” As she relived the episode in her mind, her breathing came in fast pants and sour bile rose in her throat.
“He threw me on the sofa there, and he…. He raped me. I tried to fight him off, but he was too strong, and he put a knife to my throat.”
The duke lay a hand on her shoulder but said nothing.
She appreciated that show of support, for she was about to break apart, could feel the pressure of that man’s hands on her body, could still smell his garlic-scented breath…
With a shiver, Eloise continued. “He raped me, stole my innocence, took what was supposed to be for Jean-Claude.” A sob released from her throat.
“Afterward, I spit on him and he slapped me, said the French people owed the military everything.”
“Fuck, but that’s wrong,” Blackhawke uttered, and in the window’s reflection, she was surprised to see murderous intent on his face.
She nodded. “I’d barely recovered from that, but the next night, the other officer did the same to me. He said if I didn’t comply, he’d rape my mother then kill her.”
“Who were they? I want names. If they were the men I was after—”
“Do stop.” This time, she turned to him, peered up at him as tears fell to her cheeks. “There is no use hunting them. No doubt they didn’t survive the war, or else someone else killed them for what they did to other women.”
“It’s appalling, nonetheless.”
“I know.” She nodded. “My poor Jean-Claude. He was beside himself; my mother was incensed. A week later, the French regiment left, and that was when the handful of English men came into the village.”
“Me and my fellow spies, hunting down the worst of the worst.”
“Perhaps.” With a shrug, she tried to dismiss the story. “That was when my fiancé perished from the English interference just when the village was trying to heal, but the story doesn’t end there.”
“What else?” It sounded as if he asked that from around clenched teeth.
“That was a confusing, grief-filled time. I don’t remember much; perhaps I told myself to forget.” She brushed at the moisture on her cheeks. “Two months later, the horror continued. I discovered I was increasing from one of those rapes.”
“Oh, God.” With a dull thud, his cane fell to the floor as he took her gently into his arms and simply held her. “You have a child.” It wasn’t a question.
“No.” Heat flamed through her cheeks as answering warmth went through her chest as shame grew.
“How could I carry and bear a babe that came from violence, from one of those horrible men? It would prove a constant reminder of that time in my life.” A sniffle escaped her.
“Babies are supposed to be created out of love and welcomed with the same. With Jean-Claude dead and certain scandal facing me not of my own making, I faced an empty, hard future.”
“You had no choice. This is true.” Yet shock reflected on his face. “What happened?”
“I told you my mother was a healer, a witch of sorts. When I told her in hysterical tears what I suspected, she told me not to worry, that there was a way to rid myself of the problem.” It sounded monstrous when spoken aloud and out of her head.
“She brewed me a tea made with specific herbs that I drank multiple times for a few days.” When her chin trembled, a swath of grief went through her, for outside of her mother, no one knew about this.
“A day later, horrible pains gripped my insides. Then, I miscarried. It was all over, and I could try to move away from those events.”
“But you couldn’t.”
“No. I mourned that child, regardless. I’d always wanted to be a mother, but not that way.
It drove me into the darkness.” Unable to look at him, Eloise burrowed into the safety of his arms. She clung to him as he eased a hand up and down her back in comfort.
“I don’t know if it was due to everything that had happened during that time or her illness, but my mother died the next month. I was lost and alone.”
“And you took refuge in the idea of taking revenge on me, for something I may or may not have done.” It also wasn’t a question.
“Yes. It was the only thing I had.” When she layered herself to his chest, he tightened his arms around her.
That odd sense of protection brought her a modicum of comfort.
“Once I lost my mother, there was nothing left for me in France except the horrid memories, except loss. I returned to England, went to my father’s townhouse, and for a long time didn’t leave even for small walks.
My father took care of me as I drowned in the grief, the anger. ”
“Until the need for revenge and your anger spurred you back into society.” Putting a curled finger beneath her chin, he encouraged her head back, then after searching her gaze, he dipped his head and kissed her.
There was so much tenderness in the gesture that it brought a new wave of tears to her eyes.
“What happened in your past—all of it—wasn’t your fault. ”
“If I hadn’t opened that door when the soldiers came…”
“They would have fucking broken it down. You know this.”
Slowly, she nodded, for it was true. “But if Jean-Claude hadn’t gone out in the street that evening to call on a patient the same time you showed up…”
He grunted. “The same thing would have occurred. It was a time of war, Elli. Judgments were clouded; hearts were hardened. Missions mattered, and when men are hungry, desperate, disillusioned, they don’t think correctly.
” Resting his forehead against hers, he sighed.
“It’s not an excuse, and we both know it, but it is an explanation that might perhaps remove the shame and anger you feel toward yourself. ”
In a bizarre sort of way, that made sense. “I’m so tired of misfortune and death, so weary of feeling sadness and grief, of thinking about what might have been.”
“I know, for I torture myself with alternate outcomes myself.”
She nodded, peered up at him as the tears fell. “Now I have nothing except nightmares and regrets. The future I assumed I would have died three years ago, and I have been at sixes and sevens ever since.”
“Until I plunged you into yet another nightmare,” he said as he cupped her cheek. “If I’d but known…”