Secrets of Sloane House(87)
He nodded. Unable to take his eyes from the dark marks on her neck, he said, “Perhaps I should summon the police.”
She sighed. Looked at him as if he were a green boy instead of a grown man. “We both know I cannot allow you to do that. No one can ever know what happened.”
As her words registered, a curious sense of peace rolled over him. He knew. He now knew what had happened to her. She had been raped. He was as sure of it as he was of anything.
After the briefest of knocks, the library door opened. His mother walked in first, wearing her favorite embroidered violet dressing gown. She was followed by Cook, who was looking a bit disheveled in a rumpled plain black dress. In her hands was a tea tray, complete with three china cups and saucers, a large pot of tea, cream, lemon and sugar, and a small platter of sandwiches and cookies.
With barely the briefest of glances at Eloisa, she set down the tray and placed three starched napkins next to it. “Would you like me to pour, sir?”
“I’ll do it, Anne,” his mother said as she took a seat next to Eloisa.
“It weren’t nothing.”
When they were alone, his mother took a long look at Eloisa, then picked up the teapot. “How do you take your tea, Eloisa? Cream? Lemon? Sugar?”
“Lemon. If you please.”
His mother prepared three cups, handing one to Eloisa, then the next to him, with efficient movements born of many years hosting guests under varying conditions.
Then she spoke. “What can we do to help you?”
Eloisa clasped her hands together on her lap. “There is nothing you can do.”
Reid shared a look with his mother, then said what had to be asked, no matter how uncomfortable it made their guest. “Who did this, Eloisa?”
She averted her eyes but said nothing.
Hating to cause her further discomfort but feeling duty bound, he prodded a bit more. “I’m guessing that you were violated?”
Her face paled. For a moment, he feared she would faint. Then she nodded. Twin tears traipsed down her cheeks. After a ragged sigh, she lifted the cup, but her hands were shaking so badly, his mother had to help her guide the china to her lips. For a moment, he considered sending a servant to the kitchens to ask for a drop of brandy. They kept it for medicinal reasons, and he believed this was definitely a time of need.
But he was also afraid to spook her, and the offer of spirits might do that.
Therefore, he did the only thing he could, which was to promise her that he would take care of things. “Eloisa, who harmed you?”
She pursed her lips, then set down the cup. “I don’t want to press charges. It would only be my word against his. And I don’t want my parents to know.”
“Your mother would want to help you, dear.”
“No. My mother would say I was ruined. That all those years of grooming and schooling and French and deportment classes were all for naught.”
Reid wanted to say he was surprised, but he wasn’t. Any woman who was ruined held the blame. And it wasn’t just in the upper classes that this was true. It was in the middle and lower classes as well.
“If you tell me, I won’t reveal your name. But you need to be avenged.”
“I don’t need to be avenged, Reid. But . . . I do believe that what happened to me tonight is the missing link to your mystery.”
He blinked, trying to follow her train of thought.
“With Rosalind and her sister?” Then, “Was it Douglass, Eloisa?”
“I would never say his name aloud.”
But her eyes said differently. Her whole body’s stance and posture said differently. And his heart and soul did too. “I understand.”
Reid stood up. He thought of trying to reassure her, let her know that justice would be served, but he wasn’t so naive as to spew false promises.
“My mother and I will pay a call on Sloane House tomorrow.”
Eloisa shook her head. “He will deny everything.”
“I imagine he will. But his parents and his sister might tell a different story.”
“I don’t want my name bandied about. I couldn’t bear it.”
“I’m not asking for that. All I am going to say is my experience, when I saw him with Nanci at the fair, then saw her after being with him. I am sorry to say that she looked much the same as you do now.”
“He’s done this before.”
“I had heard rumors.”
His mother said, “Eloisa, do you believe that he has preyed on other young ladies of your social stature?”
“There is reason to believe so.” She, too, stood up, wrapped her arms around her slim waist, hugging herself so tightly he felt his heart ache. “D–Douglass forced me into an empty room. And he kept whispering that I would be fine if I didn’t fight him. That no one would know.” She shivered again. “I believed him after he hit me.”