Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ISABELLE
Pain.
The first thing my body registered was a lancing pain behind my eyes. I teased them open slightly to find the space around me largely dark, my eyes blurry. The glow of a fire at the far side of the room and a dimmed lamp on a sideboard somewhere illuminated some of this space, but it wasn’t right.
Clamping my eyes closed and willing them to function, I groaned. I reached out, pushing the layers off me. Heavy blankets covered my legs, it was claustrophobic and hot and I didn’t recognise where I was.
I located a sideboard, my fingers closing around a glass. Pulling myself forwards I took a large swig, my throat sore, my stomach turned at the cold liquid.
I was going to be sick.
Lurching upright the pain behind my eyes exploded and I fell back against the pillows, nausea driven back by the shattering headache.
My hands found the pain and I tried to massage it, tried to recall what had happened and how I had got here.
Slowly, it came back to me.
The pub. The men. The van.
“Oh, no,” I whispered.
Something in the room rustled and my muscles locked up in fear.
My eyes opened fully, dry and sore from what was not a sleep, they adjusted to the room at a pace that had me coiled with anticipation and dread.
A form came into focus, half hidden in the depth of the room.
The dark green bedroom that had once been mine, many, many years ago. In my parents’ home.
The shape in the armchair, however, was not my father. Too tall, too lithe. It was definitely a man, and my drug-addled brain began to understand just who it was.
“It’s been an entire month, Isabelle,” Teddy snarled from his shadow-shrouded villain-chair.
I listened carefully to his tone, cold and judgemental. Teddy was furious.
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
I gathered the blankets, pulling them up over my body in an attempt to protect myself from his wrath.
“Nothing?” he continued, the ice in his voice hardening.
When I didn’t speak he leaned forwards, clicking on a tall lamp beside him, he came into focus. His shirt was creased, a tie lay over the arm of the chair, his normally perfectly coiffed hair now finger-raked and messy.
This Teddy was not composed.
“How dare you!” he snapped.
His fingers gripped the leather of the armchair, the fabric creaking under the force of his hold.
“Say something!” he screamed.
I recoiled as if I’d been slapped, searching for my voice.
“I don’t know what to say.” My voice was rasping.
“You don’t want to offer your fiancé any explanation?” He’d quietened again but was no less threatening. “Don’t want to try to claim that you were abducted? Held against your will? No attempt to convince me you didn’t embarrass me by running away.”
I weighed my words carefully. “Would you believe me if I did?”
He snorted. “I will never believe another word you say.”
“Then I won’t waste your time by lying to you,” I replied.
He scoffed.
“Why are you here, Teddy?” I asked. “If I’m such an embarrassment then why not use the opportunity to call off the engagement?”
“I came straight here the moment I was informed they had you. I’ve not left since,” he mused. “Plus, you must be joking? I wouldn’t call off anything. I wouldn’t want to waste the opportunity to continue with our little battle of wills.”
His amusement grew at my look of shock.
“It started with your studies. I could tell you were getting cold feet and when you started dragging it all out I found it entertaining, then adorable. Little did you know that my tolerance of your antics won me more favour with my political critics.”
I felt the heat of tears beginning to build at his admission.
“The longer you made me wait, the more time I had to plan our future, and the sweeter it would be when you eventually married me.” He sounded gleeful. “But this, Isabelle.” His humour was gone. “This was a step too far.”
I swallowed against my parched throat.
“And now.” He reached to collect something from the floor. “I’ve spent a fortune to have you returned to me.”
“You could have anyone, Teddy,” I pleaded.
“I don’t want anyone! I want what is mine!” His yell made me flinch again.
I couldn’t fight my recoil even though I knew it was coming.
“Imagine my disappointment,” he continued. “When I realised what you had been up to.”
I froze, trying to see more clearly what he toyed with in his lap.
“The fact that you ran away from me is issue enough. The lies I’ve had to weave, the men in custody,” he mused.
I frowned. Christian?
“None of them truly involved, of course, but it has to look like you were taken against your will. Even though we both know differently.”
I took shallow breaths.
“What do you mean, Teddy?” I pushed.
He lifted an item from his lap and I frowned.
The pale blue spine, the worn wording on the case.
“To remember me by,” Teddy read. “Who are you remembering, Isabelle?”
My blood turned to ice. Ben.
Teddy didn’t wait for my reply. “The same person as the owner of these?” He crooked a finger. A pair of boxers dangled from it.
Oh, fuck. My grimace gave me away.
“Have you been away whoring yourself, little Izzy?” he growled.
“No,” I whispered.
He glowered at me, seeing whatever he wanted.
“I’m no whore, Teddy. I’ve never promised to be pure.”
“But you’ve been in another man’s bed when you were due to be in mine,” he replied, now deathly calm.
He stood and I flinched. The book dangled from his fingers, the cover open. He watched me as I looked to it, reading every emotion on my face no doubt.
He took the book between both hands and tore, the cover ripping in half, several pages came free and fluttered to his feet.
He watched me with unbridled challenge before throwing the book across the room. I dabbed at my face, finding streams of tears coursing down my cheeks, a gasping sob wrenched from me when one of the halves caught the hearth and burst into flame.
He fisted Seb’s boxers and threw them after the book where they added to the dancing flames.
He stalked towards the bed. My recoil gave me no extra space, pressed as I was into the cushions, up against the headboard.
His fingers reached for me. My withdrawal, curling away from his touch, brought a cruel snarl to his features as he continued to reach out.
When he touched me, his fingers traced the tears, scooping them up, he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.
“Your world is about to change, Isabelle,” he whispered, his fingers returning to dance across my tear-stained skin and down to cup my neck in warning. “There will be no more of this.”
I knew that by this, he meant my behaviour.
“You will fall in line,” he threatened, fingers digging into the sides of my throat.
My eyes widened at the threat before he stalked from the room.
He had returned not long after, a doctor in tow.
The pair of them loomed over the bed while the doctor took my blood pressure and checked me over.
“I want a pregnancy test.” Teddy spoke to the doctor.
“I’m not pregnant,” I protested.
The men ignored me.
“Miss Blackthorne,” the doctor began but Teddy whispered something urgently. “I’m sorry, Ms Fairchild.”
If I hadn’t been so disgusted, I would have laughed.
“When was the first day of your last period?” he asked.
The haze of horror shifted slightly. Shit, when was it?
“Before,” I answered to blank stares. “It was my birthday, around then.”
The doctor flipped through some paperwork. “I don’t have the full scope of your fertility and reproductive reports here.” He avoided Teddy’s hard glare. “Are your cycles usually twenty-eight days?”
Embarrassment warmed my cheeks. “Mostly, the odd cycle can be longer.”
“How long?” He snapped latex gloves on and began laying out medical supplies. A rubber tourniquet, vials and cleaning wipes.
I looked away, I never had a stomach for needles. “The longest was just under two months.”
“So, this could still be within a normal threshold, it doesn’t mean she is pregnant.” The doctor dared to look at Teddy but quickly looked away.
“Of course.” I attempted nonchalant composure but inside my heart hammered.
“I assume…” he floundered. “There’s reason to believe…” The doctor’s cheeks coloured, I knew he wanted to ask me whether I had been sexually active, but the tension rolling from Teddy was unbearable so he chose to continue in silence.
I grimaced when the tourniquet pinched into my skin, keeping my eyes averted as he withdrew the blood.
“I assume.” He steeled himself visibly as he spoke. “We don’t need any other checks?”
Teddy’s lip lifted, his body coiled with rage. When I thought he would tear the man limb from limb, he deferred to me.
It wasn’t a moment of victory; he was asking me if I had been willingly involved with another man. And the answer was yes.
I shook my head at the doctor. There was no need for any other tests.
Teddy’s rage hardened into something darker.
The doctor, sensing the deterioration of the mood in the room, sped up visibly, collecting vials of pills from his bag and placing them along the sideboard.
“These will help her to cope after the ordeal and help to ease her back into day-to-day life. One, maybe two, in the morning, first thing.” He lifted another bottle.
“These are for any difficult episodes, the adjustment period is unlikely to be plain sailing.” His attention turned to me.
“When you’re struggling, Ms Fairchild, these will help. ”
I looked at the labels, both of them benzodiazepines. More sedatives.
“We can start with these, any enhanced treatments would need to come through the clinic, but they will get things moving – when you are ready, Mr Fairchild.” The next set of tablets were placed into Teddy’s hands and he tucked them into his suit trousers.
I waited for either of them to expand further, they didn’t.
The doctor excused himself, Teddy lowering himself to perch on the edge of my bed, a contemplative look overshadowing the fury that had been there but that still shifted underneath.
He snatched up a bottle, taking out a pill then a second.
He reached out, palm open, offering me the drugs.
Waiting.
Unsteadily, I took the tablets from him, my fingers glancing over his palm as little as I could manage, but my responding shudder was visible and the sharp thing glinting in Teddy’s eyes flared.
I placed them cautiously on my tongue and accepted the offered water, swallowing it down under his steady observation.
“I’m nipping out for a short while.” He had calmed, though he sounded displeased. “I’ll be moving in next door, until the wedding.”
I said nothing.
His brow creased and he sighed.
The door opening once more interrupted the painful interaction and my mother bustled inside. She gave me her most disapproving glare while Teddy excused himself and left me to my next scolding.
“Ungrateful woman,” she admonished. “Disgusting behaviour. Your father and I were worried sick. How could you?”
“Please, Mother.” My head had begun to swim.
“Don’t you ‘please, Mother’ me, Isabelle. You’re a disgrace,” she spat. “The tales your father and the Fairchilds have had to spin. Why he didn’t abandon you, I will never know. You are extremely lucky.”
My scoff had her aghast.
“That boy loves you, and frankly, Isabelle, you make that extremely difficult. So, it is about time you counted your blessings.”
I clapped my hand to my head as if holding it steady on the outside would stop the inside from swirling.
“I’ll talk to Father?” I offered.
“You’ll do no such thing. You won’t be seeing your father, nor anyone else, for the foreseeable future.” She took up the tablets, reading the labels. “About time.”
I turned to her, my look of horror no doubt softened by the exhaustion overcoming me.
I curled over onto the cushion putting my mother to my back. I didn’t have the energy for this; my heart ached too heavily for her abuse.
“Frankly, if it were my choice, I’d give you a few weeks in Cliffedge,” she snipped.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mother, Cliffedge?” I mumbled. “The institution?”
Her laugh was hollow and cruel. “Oh, Isabelle, there are two reasons, and two reasons only, that you aren’t already institutionalised. Something I believe would be perfectly appropriate to give you the adjustment you need to your perspective.”
I groaned, willing myself to argue but finding an absence of the ability to speak.
“The first being your father’s absolute refusal to endure any more embarrassment of your making.”
A sliver of my broken heart shattered further.
“The second being it would interfere with the wedding date, and absolutely nothing, Isabelle, will delay that now.”