“No, Jeremy! I said no! I’ll scream,” she threatened, and she pushed at his shoulders with all her strength. It made no difference.
“There’s no one to hear you. My sister’s staying with friends, and the daily girl doesn’t come in until eight. Scream all you like.” And then, his mouth hot against her ear, “I actually rather like it.”
He wrenched aside the crotch of her knickers. “That’s better,” he said, and then he spat. She flinched, but he’d aimed the spittle at his own hand. It made no sense—why should he do such a thing?
He opened the flies on his trousers, and now he was rubbing his wet hand over his—no, no—and he pushed at her legs, forcing them wide, and the horror of his invasion, the tearing, wrenching brutality of it, stunned her into immobility.
What had she done for him to be so cruel? Or was this what it was simply like? Did all women have to endure such indignities? Were the love stories Milly had read aloud to her all lies?
Everything had been a lie.
He was so heavy, and his breath against her face was so rank, and everything he was doing was so painful and disgusting, and the sounds he made under his breath were just awful. Filthy words, over and over, right against her ear, and soft, whining groans that turned her stomach.
She hardly noticed when he rolled off her.
“Up you get,” he said, slapping at her thigh. He sounded almost playful. “You’ll want to clean yourself up. I’ll see you downstairs.”
How long did she stay there, her legs splayed open, her eyes hot and dry and sightless? She had to get up, she knew, and find some way out, but it was a long while before she was able to move. Even then the room spun around her and she had to fight hard not to be sick.
She noticed an open door, and beyond it the cool gleam of white tile, and somehow she managed to stand and then stumble to the bathroom. She was still wearing her shoes.
She switched on the light above the sink, and was surprised by the woman she found in the mirror. Eyes wild, face ghostly pale, hair dull and straggling and damp against her neck.
A stack of linen hand towels, impossibly fine, sat on a table next to the sink. She wet one of them with cold water, wrung it out, and wiped her face. Then her breasts, where a long, livid scratch had risen against her milky skin. And, last, between her legs. She had to rinse the towel again and again, but after a while the water no longer ran pink.
She pulled down her skirt, straightened her ruined stockings, and, after a moment’s hesitation, stepped out of her torn knickers and stuffed them in the bin. Her blouse was intact, for the buttons had obediently popped through their holes when he’d tugged it open.
He was in the kitchen, and her bag was on the table. He must have taken it with him when he’d gone downstairs. He had made himself a sandwich and a cup of tea, and he didn’t even look up when she came in.
“I’d like to go home,” she said.
“Fine. You know the way out. I hope you didn’t make a mess on my mother’s bed.”
“No,” she said, enjoying a moment of perverse pride in her lie. There was no easy way to get blood out of silk brocade. She put on her coat, which he’d thrown over the back of a chair, and picked up her bag.
She stared at him, wondering how he could be so calm. So unaffected by what he had done to her. “Why?” she said at last.
He kept eating his sandwich, bite after bite, and when it was gone he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and went to set the empty plate in the sink. Only then did he turn to look at her.
“You have no idea what it costs to live properly. No idea of the expectations people have, of the things I’ve had to force myself to do, just to keep a foot in the door.”
“It was all lies.”
“In the main, yes. I kept hoping you might be silly enough to tell me about that bloody gown. But not a word—not one word. And I couldn’t come straight out and ask, could I? You’d have run in the other direction if I’d said a thing. I’ve wasted weeks on you, and I’m no further ahead than I was in August.”
“So it was revenge just now?”
“That? That was me having some fun. You, too, if you’d bothered to unclench your teeth.”
“You raped me.”
“Did I? You came to this house with me. You walked upstairs on your own. You let me kiss you. There isn’t a judge in this land who’d agree it was rape.”
“But I know it was. You can try to forget, but it will never leave you. I know, and you know, that you are the farthest thing in the world from a decent man.” She walked to the side door and tore it open. “I hope you drown in your debts. It’s no less than you deserve.”