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The hallway wavered before her eyes, but she forced the ugly pictures from her mind and continued on. Maybe God would strike her dead for her sins; then she would not have to go through with it. Or then again, maybe this was all she deserved.
Chapter Four
The closed white door mocked her brave intentions. Glancing back at the stairs, she tightened her arms around herself. The hall was empty.
The floorboards creaked, and Mercy jumped. A maid bustled out of the room down the hall, carrying a pile of white laundry, her eyes red and puffy. She passed Mercy without acknowledgment. Invisible, as servants should be, unlike Mercy, who stood in the hallway like a beacon of shame.
Her curiosity poked and prodded until she took tentative steps to the open door. An opulent bedroom, fine furniture and lace doilies cast in shadows.
Then Mercy noticed the bed and gasped.
A black puddle stained the bare mattress. Mercy had witnessed enough slaughters of sheep and cows to know what it was. Blood.
Had her father done that, too? It seemed…impossible. But then, she knew how violent he became in his cups. And she’d done nothing. That dried blood was on her hands, too.
She returned to the third door. Rochford was hurting. She might not understand his grief, but she understood solace. This much she could do for him. In this way, she could begin to pay penance.
She took a deep breath, turned the knob and slipped inside.
This room was smaller than the last. Mercy blinked, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Rochford slumbered peacefully on the bed. She took a step closer. Though with his face relaxed in sleep and his slender shoulders showing above the sheet, he looked closer to a boy.
He had looked fearsome in the barn, invincible, but he was just a young man. Only a few years older than herself, maybe one and twenty. And handsome. She had never let herself notice before. She could have dreamed of him, if she’d had any will left to dream. She could have loved him, if she’d had the strength to hope. As it was, she had always been beneath him, a village girl to the landed lord.
It had been easier not to think of him at all, than imagine what could have been.
Well, she was still far beneath him, warming his bed. Or supposed to. He was sound asleep. No matter her determination to carry this through, or to get it over with quickly, she was not bold enough to climb in while he slept.
She considered returning downstairs to wait, but she didn’t want to risk running into Nathaniel again. Besides, the tall chairs in front of the hearth looked so inviting.
Rochford flung an arm above his head. Mercy froze. He turned and then blinked at the ceiling. With a sigh, his gaze lowered until it met hers.
“You,” he breathed. He sounded accusatory, but he had been the one to bring her here.
She shivered. “I wasn’t sure if I should knock.”
“Get out.”
Her courage fled. She turned to leave, but a rustle and a rush of air warned her of his approach. Breath escaped her lungs in a quiet burst of shock. She didn’t move a muscle, barely breathed, waiting for him to touch her.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” he whispered against her temple.
Soft pressure drifted down the side of her body. She swallowed hard.
“You don’t belong here.”
It was true. She was sorry. She wanted to tell him but the words would not form. A breath blew across the back of her neck, raising the hairs there.
Hardness pushed against her behind. She knew what it was. His lips danced down her neck. Her fingernails scraped the door.
“Tell me no,” he said. “Tell me I’m a brute, not to touch you.”
Her hands curled into fists, impotent against wood panels. And go where?
This whole night lined up before her like some sort of a test, but she didn’t understand the rules. She feared there were none at all, just that she would lose.
“Please,” she said.
The hand on her breast fell away. “Get on the bed, then.”
Mercy scrambled onto the bed and huddled in the center, wrapping the dress tight around her. He was naked, and she looked quickly away. The bed creaked under his weight. He pushed her back onto the sheets.
It had been two years since she’d barred the door to her father. Two years since she had threatened to poison his food if he ever touched her sister.
Endure, she told herself, and live. She was out of practice.
Air brushed her thighs as her nightgown lifted. She clenched her eyes and fists tight. Warm weight pressed along her body.
“Mercy,” he whispered, but it did not sound like something that needed a response.
The gentlest of touches feathered her face, so light she was not even sure whether it was his fingers or just his breath. Soft caresses trailed down her neck.
They stopped, probing. Sharp pain lanced her shoulder. Her bruise, and not a pretty sight. She had the most inappropriate urge to laugh. She doubted whatever women he had seen in London were marked like this.
“What is this?” he asked.
It is a bruise, she wanted to say, but her smart mouth had gotten her in trouble in the first place, so all she said was, “Doesn’t hurt.”
“Who hit you?”
Her father, of course, but she was loath to bring up the man he had just killed when she lay so helplessly under him. His tone demanded an answer—he was the lord here and her master of the moment. She tensed, waiting for reprimand, wondering if her disobedience would earn her another bruise.
He might have read the answer from her body, for a choked sound came from above her, then the weight lifted. Footsteps stumbled across the room and then silence fell, amplified by the quiet crackle of the fire.
Was he finished, then? He had only touched her, not taken her virginity. But then, that was all her father had ever done. Maybe that was all they ever wanted with her.
She opened her eyes and sat up. Rochford hunched over in a chair by the hearth, head in his hands. Spasms shook his naked body, though he was completely silent. He wasn’t weeping but she almost wished he would. It would be easier to bear than these deep, wrenching jerks of his whole body, as if it could not even express the grief, as if it would tear itself apart trying.
Though surely he would not want it, she felt sorry for him. It was like looking into a deep well, black and endless. Some part of her still hoped this night was a dream—a nightmare—but her mind could not have conjured up his genuine despair.
A cleverer girl might take the reprieve and run, but she could not leave him this way. He had this whole house full of servants and an earldom, every advantage a young man could hope for, but she had never seen someone so desolate except maybe herself. And for all the trappings, he was so very alone.
She crossed the room and knelt beside him. The deliberations of her ruined future clattered to the floor, eclipsed by his grief. His need for solace gaped like an open wound. If her body could be an instrument of healing, she would not regret its use.
The light touch of her hand to his knee seemed to send a shock through him. In a flash, he grasped her body between his legs, within his arms, bundling her up like a babe.
His shudders rocked both of them, adrift in the sea of his grief. But neither of them were alone anymore. Tentatively, she stroked his back.
Seconds stretched into minutes, maybe even hours, and he slowly stilled. She was exhausted, as if she had been the one to cry, even though she had not shed a tear. He shivered, and she ran her fingers over his neck, his shoulders.
The air thickened with expectation. She understood what it meant: the member that hardened beneath her, the way his breathing turned harsh and heavy. His hold on her body turned from a greedy clutch to a firm hold of intention. Her body awoke with anticipation, while her mind muted the world with its protective cloak.
He tangled his fingers in her hair, tugging her head back. His mouth met her neck in an open-mouthed kiss, then moved up behind her ear. She heard him breathe in the scent of her, as if he were suffocating and she were air. He settled her over his hardness, rocking gently.
“I can’t stop,” he muttered.
She made a decision, then, but it had never really been in question. He was her lord, her master, her everything. This was her fault, more than he could ever know. The use of her body, the loss of her maidenhead, was all the recompense she had to give. She proffered herself with a gentle nudge of her hips.
He froze, taut muscle imprisoning her against his hardness. “No.”
No? “You don’t want me?”
“You’re innocent,” he said on a groan.
Misplaced honor. She swallowed against the thickness. “I’m not.”
He paused, his indecision swirling around their locked embrace.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You need this.”
He moved quickly, pushing up the thin fabric of her nightclothes and nudging her entrance with his thickness. It was too large, wouldn’t fit. The pressure burned, and she withheld a whimper, but his grip inexorably pulled her down. He impaled her, and she cried out.
“Mercy?” he asked.
Her hips raised and lowered, the motion instinctive. She knew the rhythm, and now her body learned its dance.
“Yes,” he said. “Please.”
She would have done it anyway, but to hear him beg spurred her on faster. Her movements were rewarded with a low moan. Always, she had been the one at a disadvantage. This time she set the pace. His hands rested on her hips, his head fell back.
Dark memories nipped at her heels, but she grounded herself in the moment with his reactions. A curve of her hips had him gasping. A clenching of her muscles drew a groan out of him.
She ruled him with every undulation of her body. He was the supplicant now, pleading from heavy-lidded eyes. A pinch of pain marked each invasion, but there was perverse pleasure, too. His needy sounds, his helpless shudders brought her a sort of internal satisfaction.
His face contorted into a mask of fury: his eyes glinted, unseeing, his teeth bared. A low growl erupted from him as his body bowed upward. The force of his crisis tossed her body, but the weight of his hands anchored her.
It was violent and desperate, in harmony with the rest of this night, but she could not be frightened. He had left himself vulnerable to her, and so tied a small string of trust between them. She had seen the weakest part of him, and his desire wasn’t it.
He fell back onto the chair, wrapping her against his chest. His peace cocooned them both, a brief respite from the storm. Then he stood, pulling her up with him. She was drained, with no strength left to protest when he carried her across the room.
He tucked her into bed, like a parent to a child, then he donned layer after layer of clothing, until his lanky limbs and slim torso were puffed up into the proper image of his lordship. Without a word, he left the room and shut the door behind him.
The tiredness crashed over her in waves, until finally, sleep dragged her under.
* * *
The sound of voices woke Mercy—low pitched, male. One muttered incessantly, broken briefly by Rochford’s crisp accent and Owen’s familiar timbre.
She opened her eyes. A dim glow through the window heralded the approach of dawn. The door swung open. She caught a glimpse of Rochford before she shut her eyes again.
“Wake up, Mercy,” he said.
He would have her leave his room, his house. Perhaps she would even have to leave the village, so as not to corrupt it. There were large problems to face, but as long as she huddled in the bed, she could put them off. Just for a moment, she wanted her life free from the whims of men.
She said in a small voice, “I’m tired.”
And she did feel tired, but more than that, she felt afraid.
Owen came in, followed by the vicar. She gasped and stumbled from the bed, fussing futilely with the rumpled dress. It was one thing for Rochford or Owen to see her in such a state, with her hair falling around her shoulders and feet bare, but it was another thing entirely for a man of the cloth to witness her shame.
Owen pulled the vicar over to stand between the chairs by the hearth. Rochford grabbed her hand and pulled her to stand beside him.
“Begin,” Rochford said.
The vicar simpered. “The banns.”
Rochford made a sound suspiciously like a growl.
“Marriage is a covenant of faith and discipline between a man and a woman…” the vicar intoned.
“What?” she whispered, digging her fingernails into the hand that held hers. “Marriage?”
His hand tightened back. “It’s the only thing to do,” he said. “You are ruined.”
“You ruined me,” she whispered. “And you didn’t seem overly concerned about it at the time.”
The vicar did not pause his recitation. “Today, before us and the eyes of God, they are declaring their eternal commitment, both on Earth and in the hereafter.”
“Make her see reason,” Rochford said over her head to Owen.
Owen shifted, not meeting her eyes. “Seems like the thing to do. After all…” He trailed off while his eyes flitted to the unmade bed where they had found her.
“That makes me his mistress, not a wife.”
“Why are you arguing?” Rochford whispered. “You’re going to be a countess.”
Why was she arguing?
She had not wanted her darkness to touch anyone else, but she had already joined with Rochford. She had not wanted to live beholden to a man’s fists, as her mother, but the life of a mistress was no better.
All of that paled against the thought of how this would help her sister. No matter how her marriage turned out, her position as a countess would secure Hannah’s future.
The vicar said, “If anyone knows any cause why these two may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”
The room was silent as the vicar hesitated just a beat too long.
The vicar turned his beady eyes on her. “Mercy James Lyndhurst, do you come freely, and without reservation, desiring to commit yourself to this man in the covenant of marriage?”
Her first try came out as a croak. She cleared her throat. “I do.”
