Wendy Soliman (10 page)

But it did end. Suddenly and without warning he pulled away from her.

“I’m sorry, Saskia,” he said in a husky voice. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It doesn’t matter, Mr. Beaumont.”

“My name’s Felix.” His arm was still draped loosely around her shoulders, and he flashed an intimate smile. “Will you tell me what happened to make you estranged from your father?”

She lowered her head and shook it against his shoulder. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve never told anyone, not ever my aunt. Because it’s shocking, and I would prefer to forget all about it.”

“But you can’t forget it, can you? Not when you’re living so close and he’s doing everything he can to ruin you and your aunt. If you were to trust me, to confide in me, it would at least make you feel better; I can promise you at least that much. It may also put me in a position to be of service to you, but I can’t know unless you tell me it all.”

“Very well,” she said softly. “I’m not convinced that it will do any good, but I will tell you anyway.” She drew a deep breath and began her narrative. “I realized my condition very soon after my husband died, and was glad that I would have a child of my own to love, even if Eden was its father. It was during that time I first noticed a deterioration in my father’s behaviour. I’m sorry to say that he was adding debauchery to his growing list of unsavoury habits. He started taking…well, liberties, with some of the housemaids. One didn’t appear to mind, but the other was quite distraught. She couldn’t tell me why she was so upset, of course, but I guessed. I felt dreadfully sorry for her, but could do little of a practical nature to help. I could scarce confront my father, and the girl couldn’t risk telling me the truth for fear of being discharged without a character.”

“Regrettably, things like that do sometimes happen,” Felix said.

“Yes, I suppose so, but you have yet to hear the worst of it.” She drew another fortifying breath, but her next words were a long time in coming.

“Go on,” he prompted.

“I have two brothers, Mr. Beaumont, er…Felix. My younger brother, Gerald, contracted scarlet fever when he was young, and we feared that he might die. Happily he survived, but it left him permanently debilitated. He’s small in stature and has little physical strength, but what he lacks in brawn is more than compensated for by his agile brain. He keeps my father’s paperwork most efficiently.”

“You’re fond of Gerald?”

“Oh, yes. He’s five years older than me, but we were always close. He’s married to Henrietta, the youngest daughter of a shipping magnate whom my father was keen to cultivate. She’s perfect for Gerald, and they’re very happy together in spite of my father’s constant interference in their affairs. Henrietta is an expert botanist. She can tell you anything you wish to know about the flora and fauna hereabouts. She and Gerald had one daughter before I left home, and have since been blessed with another. I regret, though. that I’ve never seen the new baby.”

“Your brother doesn’t visit you at Riverside House?”

“Henrietta used to, until my father forbade it.”

“I see.” Felix pursed his lips. “But what of your older brother?”

Saskia’s expression darkened. “Charles is ten years my senior. He has little intellect and is a gamester and imbiber besides. He has all of the physical strength which Gerald lacks, and is my father’s heir in every sense of the word. I do not, as you must by now have surmised, like my elder brother.”

“Evidently, and with good reason, it seems.”

“The only person Charles will defer to is my father.”

“Is your elder brother also married?”

“Oh yes.” Saskia pulled a face. “To the daughter of a prominent squire in Weymouth. Unlike gentle Henrietta, Elsbeth is an impossible flirt. She’s well aware that she’s handsome, and flaunts herself at every man who crosses her path. I don’t like her, either.”

“Do they have children?”

“No. When my mother died, Charles and Elsbeth had already been married for five years, but the union was childless, which was a great disappointment to everyone. My father is most anxious for his elder son to produce a son, you see.”

“I suppose he has a right to such expectations.”

“Perhaps, but not to pursue them in such a personal way.”

“What do you mean?”

Saskia blushed. What folly occasioned her to tell this sophisticated stranger her darkest, most shameful secrets? Without stopping to consider the wisdom of so doing, she forged ahead.

“One day I chanced to walk past Charles and Elsbeth’s room in the middle of the afternoon,” she said, looking at the sand beneath her feet as she spoke. “The sounds I heard from within could only be interpreted in one way. I thought it strange, knowing that Charles was away on business for my father, but assumed he must have returned that afternoon. I was soon to find out my mistake,” she added, after a pause, “since the door opened and my father came out of the room.”

“Ah, I see. So your father was making free with his son’s wife?”

“Yes, and much as I disliked Elsbeth, I own I felt a moment’s sympathy for her, since once my father sets his mind to something, few people have the courage to stand up to him. I thought he’d forced himself upon her, you see.” Saskia sighed. “But I soon discovered just how wrong I was. She followed him to the door, threw her arms around his neck, and begged him not to leave her.”

“Dear God!”

“Yes.” Saskia recalled the scene as clearly as if it had occurred just yesterday and shuddered. “My father chuckled, grabbed at Elsbeth’s body in the crudest fashion imaginable, and told her she now knew what it felt like to have been bedded by a real man. Elsbeth still clung to him, and my father pulled her into his own chamber, where he claimed there was less chance of their being discovered.”

Saskia studiously avoided looking at Felix, aware of the disgust he must now entertain toward her entire family. She didn’t doubt for a moment that he would now leave Riverside House at the first opportunity and want nothing more to do with her. She ought to be relieved; she recalled their earlier kiss, and instead felt bereft. What in God’s name was he doing to her?

“You poor creature,” he said gently, lifting her chin with his forefinger and forcing her to meet his gaze. “You shouldn’t have been exposed to such debauchery. If your father was determined to do such a thing, he should have been more discreet.”

“Yes, perhaps. I can only assume that their liaison continued, for Elsbeth’s whole attitude changed after that. She knew me to be my father’s favourite, and we had until that time maintained a polite charade, even though we didn’t like one another. But after I witnessed that scene, Elsbeth kept chipping away at my role as my father’s housekeeper, countermanding orders I gave to the servants and grasping every opportunity to undermine my authority. She was becoming increasingly familiar with my father in public as well, pushing herself forward to the point where it became embarrassing. My brother was powerless to do anything about it, and took comfort instead from the bottle.”

“He knew, then?”

“I’m sure he did, or at least he suspected, but he’d never have the courage to confront my father. Anyway, a few months after she and my father first became intimate, Elsbeth jubilantly announced her condition. She’s given birth to three daughters over the past six years, two of whom didn’t survive, all of whom I suspect are my father’s.”

“It must have been torture for you to live with such an awful secret and have no one in whom you could confide your fears.” Felix pulled her a little closer and smiled sympathetically into her eyes. It was almost her undoing. The desire to lean against that solid wall of chest and allow him to shoulder her burden was compelling. “I suspect, however, that’s not why you left your father’s house.”

“No, indeed. I was still my father’s favourite, and that infuriated Elsbeth, for no matter what she did she could never see in my father’s eye one-tenth of the love for her that he entertained toward me. When I gave birth to the twins, giving my father his first grandson in the process, I thought she would go demented with jealousy.”

“What happened then?”

“My father used to come to my chamber every evening after dinner and talk to me. I was most embarrassed, as you can imagine. After all, it hardly seemed an appropriate location for a conversation, but I didn’t dare ask him to leave. I wasn’t even sure if I was being too modest, for I had no way of knowing if his behaviour was any way out of the ordinary. I’d never seen him more relaxed than at those times. He was almost back to the way he’d been when my mother was alive. He would talk to me about her, telling me how much he missed her still, and how proud she would have been of me and the twins. He was full of plans for their futures, especially Josh’s. I’d never known him to speak with such compassion before.”

“It sounds as though the birth of the twins brought him back to his senses.”

“Yes, I thought so, too, but when the twins were three months old my father came to my room, as usual. On that particular night he went on endlessly about how attractive I’d become, how motherhood suited me, and what an asset I could be to him. Then he said he had a Mr. Benson coming to dinner the following evening, and that he could be very helpful to him. I was to wear a new gown he’d just bought me and be pleasant to the man. I though it rather improper, since I was still in mourning for my husband, but didn’t dare to refuse.”

“What happened?” Felix appeared to force the words from between clenched teeth.

“Well, Mr. Benson must have been sixty if he was a day. He was a small, wizened man who never stopped leering at me the whole evening. He made outrageously suggestive remarks, but my father simply laughed and didn’t once rebuke him. Even Elsbeth’s overt flirting didn’t seem to register with Mr. Benson, and it was obvious from the first that he was enamoured of me.” Saskia faltered and fell silent.

“Go on.”

“That night, when my father came to my room, he said he was very pleased with the way I’d behaved at dinner, and told me I was to be married again. To Mr. Benson.”

“The devil he did!”

“That was precisely my reaction. If Eden had been bad enough, he was nothing compared to Benson. Well, something snapped within me at that moment. I wasn’t prepared to be used in that manner a second time and said that I wouldn’t do it.” She offered him a fleeting, humourless smile. “I can still see the surprised look on my father’s face. None of us had ever dared to defy him before, you see, and he appeared momentarily nonplussed. But, unfortunately for me, that was only a temporary condition. He attempted to reason with me, telling me that Benson was exceedingly rich, and well-connected in the maritime business, and that I would want for nothing. But still I refused.

“Then he got angry. I’ve never seen him half so mad before — at least not with me. He told me there was no place in his household for undutiful children. I tried to make him understand how I felt, but my continued disobedience just seemed to fuel his anger. He grabbed hold of me, put me across his knee, tore away my under-garments and beat me with his leather belt until I bled.”

Felix drew a sharp intake of breath. “Whatever did you do?”

Saskia’s gaze was fastened on the horizon as she relived the shame and humiliation of the moment. “Then he told me it was my fault, I only had myself to blame. I should know better than to go against his wishes and to flaunt myself in front of him. He said he had promised me to Benson, I would marry him, and that was the end of the matter. If I still refused, the same thing, or worse, would happen to me every night until I came to my senses and remembered where my duty lay. I understood then what he meant. I suspected what had occurred between him and some of the maids, and knew for a certainty that he and Elsbeth enjoyed an intimate relationship. I could also see how much beating me had excited him.” She looked up at Felix through eyes rimmed with tears. “I wasn’t prepared to marry that old man, and was too scared to remain beneath my father’s roof — ”

“And so you took the twins and walked to your aunt’s house in the middle of a storm.”

“Yes. There was nothing else I could do. Something changed in me that night, and I knew I wasn’t prepared to endure my father’s abuse, or marriage to yet another horrible old man. My aunt simply took me in, nursed me back to health, and has never once questioned me as to my motives.

“My father came after me as soon as he realized I was missing. He knew there was only one place I could go. But Aunt Serena kept him away from me until I was well enough to decide whether I wished to see him.”

“And did you see him?”

“Yes, but I kept him waiting for three weeks, apparently.”

“Good girl!”

“Well, I wasn’t aware of the fact at the time for I was delirious with fever. Anyway, I had no desire to see him, but I knew he wouldn’t go away until he heard it from my own lips. He appeared subdued, ashamed of what he’d done and fearful of my ensuing illness. But still, he didn’t believe for a moment that I would have the strength to continue defying him. When he realized that I was resolute in my determination not to go back to him, and that Aunt Serena didn’t mean to make me, he got angry and started the vendetta that you’ve witnessed for yourself.”

“He obviously doesn’t care to be bested.”

“No, especially not by one of his own children.” Saskia shook her head. “Poor Aunt Serena. When I think of what chaos I’ve caused in her life, what privations I’ve forced her to endure, what indignities, what inconvenience…But, you know, she’s never once asked me for an explanation, and never suggested that I should return home.”

“She’s a good woman, and loves you and the twins very much.”

“Indeed she is. But my father, as you’ve observed, will stop at nothing to achieve his end. He has intimidated the locals so that almost no one dares to work for us. He’s cut off my aunt’s stipend and generally does everything he can to force me to go back. As things stand, it looks increasingly likely that he will succeed. I know not how much more we can tolerate but, when I’m tired and at my lowest ebb, the one thing which stops me admitting defeat is the thought of what might happen to Josh and Amy under that roof. I couldn’t bear it if Josh were to be influenced by his grandfather and become like him, or if Amy’s safety was threatened in any way. It’s that thought alone that gives me strength to continue resisting him.”