Impulse (23 page)

“Yes, you can. You can tell me anything.”

“I can't. I am too ashamed.”

“There's nothing for you to be ashamed of. You didn't do anything wrong. I just want to know what that son of a bitch did to you.” He paused, and when she did not reply, he prodded a little. “Did he hit you?”

Angela nodded her head.

“With his fist? With his open hand?”

“Both. Either.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I
will
kill him,” Cam rasped. His body, everywhere he touched her, was as taut as a bowstring. “I am going to find the goddamned bastard and kill him.”

“No!” Angela clung to him convulsively. “Stay with me. Please, don't go. Don't do anything.”

“I won't do anything, not right now,” he replied, his teeth clenched. “Tell me the rest of it. What else did he do to you?”

“Sometimes—” Her voice broke. Then the words began to tumble out.

“S
OMETIMES,”
A
NGELA
began in a low voice, “Dunstan locked me in the dressing room, the little room off his bedroom, and he wouldn't let me out for a day or two. Or he would throw me out of the bed onto the floor, and make me sleep there, because he said I was only fi—only fit to sleep with the dogs.”

Cam let out a low string of curses.

“He spanked me. With his hand or a brush. Once, in front of his friends, when they were drinking downstairs and playing cards, he sent for me. I was asleep and I had to get dressed, and I didn't come quickly enough. So he said—he said he had to punish me. And he—he turned me over his lap and flipped up my skirt. He pulled down my pantaloons and spanked me—in front of all of them. Then he— Oh, God.” She raised her hands up to cover her face.

“It's all right, sweetheart. It's all right. He will never do that to you again. I promise. He will never even get close to you. You don't have to worry about him.”

“I'm so ashamed. You must think I am so dirty.”

“No! How can you say that?” Cam's voice was shocked. “I don't think anything bad about you. How could I? It wasn't your fault. Dunstan is the one to blame. He is the dirty one, the low, filthy son of a bitch.” He drew a breath, then said softly, “Go on.”

“When he was done spanking me, he was aroused.
I could feel it, lying on his lap.” She buried her face deeper in his chest, her words barely audible. Cam had to bend his head to hers to hear her. “So he made me kneel before him and…and service him with my mouth. There in front of those other friends.” She began to cry in dry, racking sobs. “I was too scared not to. I had to do it, and they all watched and clapped and yelled out things.”

Cam clenched his teeth together to hold back the bile that rose in his throat. It was a long moment before he could trust himself enough to speak. Finally he said, “That is why you don't want to be touched. Why you don't want to make love.”

She nodded miserably. “I'm sorry. I am so sorry. I— Oh, God, you might as well know the whole of it. It hurt the very first time he took me. On our wedding night. It was so fast and so painful, and he laughed at me and called me ‘Little Virtue.' Once, at dinner, he told his friends about it, right in front of me, sneering at my coldness. He said he would teach me how to please a man, and he made me go with him to a—one of those houses, where women do that for money. He made me watch while a woman did things to him. She took him in her mouth, and she bent over, and he came into her from behind. The next time, at home, he made me do those things, only I wasn't good enough at it, so he slapped me. Later, he took me to that house again, and this time, he had that woman and me do—things to him at the same time.”

“Jesus.”

“When he was too tired to perform, he took this thing, this thing that looks like a man's, you know…”

“I know.”

“He used that on me. The worst was, sometimes he
would come into me, only in the wrong place, and it hurt so much.” Her tears began again, but she continued to talk, the words pouring out as though she had no control over them anymore. She did not want to say them, but somehow she had to. “Once, he and his best friends— the three who testified against me at the divorce—he wanted me to let them t-t-take me, too, but I wouldn't. So he hit me and hit me, but I kept crying and saying I wouldn't, so they—they held me down, and each of them took a turn.”

“I am going to kill him,” Cam said in a flat voice. “I am going to find him and drag him out and beat him to death with my hands.”

“No! Cam…please, promise me that you won't. You can't kill a man. You'll go to jail.”

“I don't give a damn. I just want to see him die, as slowly and painfully as possible. Then I will find the other three and make sure that they die, too.”

“Cam!”

“Wouldn't you like me to? Wouldn't you like to see them die?”

Angela drew a shuddering breath and wiped away the tears from her face. She was feeling calm now, and curiously relieved. “Once I did. Now I just want never to have to see any of them again.”

“Tell me about the nightmare.”

“That happened the last night before Kate and I ran away. He had a lot of friends there, at Gresmere Park— that's his country estate. They were all downstairs, drinking. He called me in and said he had an idea for a sport, and it was that he was going to chase me through the maze. I tried to get away, to run out of the room, but they kept catching me and grabbing at me, tearing at my clothes. By the time I got out of the room, my bodice
was completely torn off, and most of my chemise, as well. They pursued me, joking and laughing, herding me down the hall and out the door. They never seized me. They just kept grabbing at me, ripping at my skirts and petticoats, and making me run toward the maze. When we got to the maze, Dunstan got me and ripped away the rest of my clothes, so that I was totally naked in front of them. I kept crying and begging him not to. But he just slapped my bare buttocks and told me I had better get going.

“So I ran. He gave me a head start, then he came after me, view-hallooing as if it were a fox hunt. He carried a bottle of whiskey in his hand, and he drank from it. He kept crashing into the hedges. It's a horrid maze, impossible to find your way out of it unless you know it, which Dunstan did, but he never taught me how. I kept running and running, but I would always come back to the center again, where he had this—this statue. It was bigger than life, and it loomed over everything. A statue of a satyr, and it had this huge, erect… member. It was awful, lewd and grotesque. Finally, of course, he caught me there. But he was too—too drunk to perform, so finally he made me take that thing, the thing that looks like a manhood, and he made me use it on myself in front of all of them. He told me that if I did not, he would let them all have me. I was so scared, I did what he wanted. He said I had to enjoy it, that I had to use it till I brought myself to ecstasy. But I had never had that, you see, so I had to pretend. To moan and grind my hips as I had seen the prostitutes do. To close my eyes as if I'd lost control, and wet my lips.”

Angela was silent for a moment. Cam held her, curled around her, unable to speak for the fury and pain that battled within him.

Finally Angela said in a weary voice, “He took me back up to my room, and he locked me in it. He told me that it was such an enjoyable game that we would do it again the next night. But Kate got a key and unlocked my door, and we ran away that night. Somehow we made it to London without his catching us. It was a miracle, I think. Jeremy took me in. I told him about Dunstan's beating me. I could not tell him the rest. It was too awful. He told me that I was safe, and he wouldn't let Dunstan see me when he came looking for me. He was so good, so kind to me.”

“Of course he was. He loves you.”

“I sought a divorce, but then Dunstan turned it around on me and accused
me
of adultery. His friends, the men who had raped me that night, all testified that they had had carnal knowledge of me. That much was true. I could not dispute it. I no longer cared, anyway. Nothing mattered except getting away from Dunstan, no longer belonging to him by law.”

“No wonder you balked at marrying me. You must hate men.”

“No. Jeremy was very good to me. And I do not hate you.”

“You should. I forced you to marry me. I ruined your family and threatened your brother to get you to bend to my will. God, after what he did to you, I am surprised that even that was enough to make you agree to marry me.”

“I owed Jeremy so much. And I knew that you were not like Dunstan. That you would not do the same things to me.”

“Never,” he agreed fervently. “I swear it to you.” He gathered her up more tightly in his arms. “I will not hurt you. And nothing like that will ever happen to you
again. I will make Dunstan pay, though nothing can ever be enough to make up for what he did.” He stroked her back. “I will never, ever hurt you. Trust me.”

“I do. I know you will not hurt me. But I feel so guilty, because I cannot—cannot give you what you want. I am ruined. For always. I will never be able to do what a normal woman does, to respond to you as I should.”

“There is no ‘should' about it. You can't help how you feel. If there is any should about it, it is what
I
should have done years ago, when you sacrificed yourself for me. I should have listened to you when you tried to tell me why you did it. I should have been grateful instead of cruel. I should have taken you with me when I ran away to America. Instead, I left you behind here to
suffer.
” His voice broke on the word.

“Don't blame yourself,” Angela murmured, reaching her hand up to his cheek. “How could you have known? They would have stopped us, anyway. I was married to Dunstan, legally his property.”

“You were
no
man's property,” he whispered fiercely. “
Ever.
Do you hear me?”

She nodded, leaning against his chest and closing her eyes. She felt warm now, and very weary. It was safe and nice here in Cam's arms.

“Don't worry about me,” Cam went on. “I'll manage just fine. Now that I know why you feel as you do, it will be easier. We'll think of something. We will make it better for you somehow. Not for me, sweetheart, but for you. You deserve to feel pleasure, and somehow I will find a way to let you feel it. I promise you.”

Angela made no response, and Cam leaned over to look into her face. Her eyes were closed, and he realized that she had fallen asleep. He smiled to himself,
pleased that she held such trust in him that she could sleep in his arms like a child. He kissed the top of her head and leaned back against the headboard. He held her all through the night as she slept.

 

When she awoke the next morning, Angela's head ached from crying the night before, but she felt cozy and warm, nestled in Cam's arms. Unconsciously, she snuggled closer, and his arms tightened around her. Then her brain began to work.

She remembered everything she had confided to him in the dark last night, and she was swept with hot shame. She had never told anyone of those things, not even Kate, who knew the most about her. Angela would never have dreamed that she could reveal them to a man.

Cam had been kind last night, holding her and stroking her hair, trying to soothe her. He had given her the shelter of his arms, even, she realized now, sitting up all night to hold her. But now, in the light of day, her cheeks burned with shame.
How could she manage to look Cam in the eye, knowing what he knew about her?
She was certain that his feelings about her must have changed. After he had thought about it, he would feel differently about her. When he looked at her, she thought, he must think of what she had done, of what Dunstan had done to her. He would realize now how soiled she was, how tainted. He would no longer want her, she thought. Perhaps he would no longer even want to be around her.

Her eyes filled with tears at the thought, but she sternly blinked them away. She was
not
going to turn into a watering pot. At least she would spare him more tears. She sat up, trying not to disturb Cam, and turned her head to look at him. He was still asleep, his head resting against the hard headboard. She gazed at him
for a moment, her eyes going over the soft line of his lips, the dark morning growth stubbling his cheeks and chin, his dark lashes shadowing his cheeks, and emotion clutched at her chest. She wished she had not told him. There was a certain freedom, a loosening of the block of sorrow she carried within her, but if she lost Cam, she did not think it would be worth it.

He seemed to feel her gaze, for he stirred and opened his eyes. He smiled at her sleepily and pulled her back against his chest. His lips brushed the top of her head.

“Mmm.” His voice was hoarse from sleep. “It feels good to wake up with you.”

“Does it?” Angela let out a shaky little laugh.

“Yes.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “How are you feeling?”

“All right.” She added, with a shaky little laugh, “I must look a fright, my eyes all red and puffy, and my hair every which way.”

He pulled back from her and made a show of studying her, then leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. “You look perfect, actually.”

Angela chuckled, more genuinely this time. “Indeed? Then I fear you need to be fitted for spectacles, sir.”

“I have perfect vision.” He took a strand of her hair between his fingers and toyed with it, seemingly content to do nothing but stay in bed and talk to her. “Do you know how beautiful your hair is? It's like a flame. I feel as if I could warm myself with it.”

“How can you talk this way?” she asked wonderingly.

“Talk what way?” He looked puzzled.

“So—so
normal.
”

He frowned. “What do you mean? Do you think I am too lighthearted? That I do not count what you said last
night seriously enough? Because I do, I promise you. I meant what I said. I will do everything in my power to bring Dunstan down, as well as those other three men. I intend to start investigating their sources of income this morning. I will set Jason right on it.”

“I didn't mean that. I don't think that you are too lighthearted. But I thought— How can you bear to look at me?” She felt her cheeks grow fiery at discussing the matter in broad daylight, but she had to press on. “Don't you think about what I told you, and don't you feel that I am dirty? I thought that you would be unable to meet my eye, that you would shift and look away and…”

“What a poor specimen you must think I am.”

“No! But I think you would see the things I have done when you look at me. How can you not feel disgust?”

He took her firmly by the shoulders. “When I look at you, I see only you. I see how beautiful you are, how intelligence shines from your eyes, how laughter and smiles sit upon your lips. The things that were done to you disgust me, but
you
never could. I love you, Angela. I have loved you since I first saw you.”