Jeanne took a ragged, panting breath. Glinting metal caught her eye. She glanced to the right. There was her knife. She reached for it. Her fingertips just barely tickled its surface. She tried to inch nearer.
His hold prevented it.
She tried to stretch her legs, her body, her arm. Her fingertips made direct contact with the handle. One more stretch—
Toovey yanked her closer toward him and away from the knife. “Let’s have this over with. It isn’t as though I find you all that appealing.” He took possession of her both her legs again then came down over her, pinning her with his larger, stronger body.
Dread sank in Jeanne’s guts, desperation made her try to sit halfway up. The scene before her swirled. Dizziness overcame her, a nauseating, crushing pain in her skull. She was forced to lie back.
She knew with all her being that she wanted to be David’s wife. She would do anything to be what he needed. She wanted to share his life. She wanted bear his children. But if Toovey did this…
“I’ll have double the revenge now. They’ll sentence you to hang for Isabella’s murder. But the mighty Duke of Hartley will be able to influence them to commute the sentence. You’ll be sent to Australia, that savage land, and he will know that you will suffer all the agony and indignity of the pox in a place where he cannot help you or lessen your suffering in any way.”
He tore at his clothes, breaking the threads that held the buttons on his outer fall. They popped and fell about the floor.
“But then a fuck’s a fuck, isn’t it, Miss Darling of Wentworth Street?”
Revulsion shuddered through her whole body. She couldn’t hold back a miserable moan. It was happening. There was nothing she could do.
A rasp, like metal against metal sounded. The front door swung open and more light flooded the foot of the stairs.
She let her head fall back weakly and registered the tall figure in a dark greatcoat.
“David…” She rolled her head on the marble floor for she feared she was hallucinating.
A sound of boots. A shadow passed over her. Toovey’s weight lifted off her. A dull thud sounded. She managed to lift her head in time to see David push Toovey to the wall.
“I’ll break your fucking neck!”
“Don’t…” She fell back to the floor. Her head hit with a bounce and pain electrified her skull like lightning. “Don’t David, it’s not worth…he’s gone insane. He has the syphilis.”
Everything went black.
Chapter Thirteen
She was in a huge, scary forest. A yellow green miasma of churning nausea and agonizing pain lay on the path behind her. She had struggled to make her way through every clinging branch and jabbing, jagged stone. She had kept falling to her knees and retching on the ground. She tried to arise. Hands held her down. Ruthlessly. Relentlessly. She hadn’t even been able to see. But now she was coming out into the brilliant sunshine. The dirt was soft, warm powder under her feet, soothing all those aches and cuts. She could smile.
Her eyes fluttered open.
David looked down at her. His face was ashen and he was unshaved. Were they back in those first days in her garret? Was he ill?
“My love.”
My love. My love. My love.
The words echoed in her mind.
The bright sunlight made her eyes hurt. She shielded them with her hand at her forehead and wriggled her toes in the cushiony, damp grass. A soft, girlish giggle carried on the breeze. She looked up. Thérèse stood there, still petite and slender but healthy with roses in her cheeks and a wreath of daisies on her head.
“You’re going to marry me, just as soon as you’re well and able.” David’s voice was part of her dream.
Yes, she did dream of wedding him. Even if it couldn’t really happen.
A touch on her arm. Papa was at her side—his gaze was so kind. He handed her a bunch of pretty violets. She put them to her nose and inhaled the haunting scent.
“Braid them into your hair. For your wedding day,” Papa said, the wrinkles by his eyes making deep crinkles as he smiled.
Oh, but wait. She had to tell David. First she had to tell him and then she could return to her dreams and frolic in the springtime sun.
She opened her eyes again. “I will write the stories. The ones to draw attention to the plight of the insane.”
She slipped down the well…
* * * *
David watched Jeanne slip back into unconsciousness with a crushing sensation in the center of his chest. The doctors couldn’t say if she would recover. She had apparently bled beneath her skull.
On the road for his trip to Scotland, his carriage wheel axel had broken, necessitating a lengthy wait in a crowded coaching inn. Already in a foul mood over his quarrel with Jeanne and the prospect that they might really be at an end, he had sat in the public room, waiting for a private chamber to be readied.