Page 73 of Miss Delightful
“I love you. If you bear me any regard at all, Dorcas, please tell me what has brought you to this pass.” A relief that, to put aside the anger and focus instead on worry for her.
“I have been a fool.”
“Who hasn’t? Tell me the rest of it.”
* * *
Dorcas had known heartache,when she’d lost her mother, when she’d capitulated to Mornebeth’s threats years ago, when she’d parted from Michael. She’d survived the fresh grief by thinking,I feel awful now, and in an hour, I might still feel awful, but not quite this wretchedly awful.
She’d known the corrosive pain of living a lie. To be held up as a good example—the vicar’s dutiful daughter—while knowing she’d allowed herself to be inveigled into Isaiah Mornebeth’s bed, had been excruciating and exhausting.
The sheer effort of maintaining a virtuous façade, that of a lady ignorant of intimate congress and of the depths of her own powerlessness, had worn down her spirit. The lie she would have to live going forward—that of devoted wife—was more monstrous than the lie of the dutiful daughter.
She’d modified her internal litany.I feel awful now, and in a month, I might still feel awful, but not quite this wretchedly awful. Or possibly in a year. Maybe in a decade.
“You should hate me,” Dorcas said, while Alasdhair sat silently beside her. “I would hate myself, but that’s pointless. I will tell you the truth in part because you ask for it and in part because I need to say the words to somebody.”
His arm remained around her shoulders, a comforting weight. “I’m listening.”
He would always listen, always see, always hear. Alasdhair was the dearest, most honorable man she would ever meet, and she must part from him.
“You know I had relations with Isaiah Mornebeth years ago.”
“Passing encounters that I ascribe to youthful folly and curiosity on your part. He is enough your senior that I cannot excuse his taking advantage of you half so easily.”
And for that, Dorcas would always love Alasdhair MacKay.
“Neither can I. Mornebeth led my brother astray, sank him in debt, bought up all of Michael’s vowels, and gave me a chance to redeem them with my virtue. If I gave Isaiah an hour of my time on three occasions, Michael’s debts would be forgiven and his reputation untarnished. If I refused, if I begrudged my family’s good name three hours about which nobody would ever know, then Isaiah would inform the bishops that Thomas Delancey’s son was a gambler and a disgraceful sot.”
Beside her, Alasdhair had gone still. “He extorted sexual favors from you?”
Extortion was a hanging felony. Dorcas mentally could not quite accuse Isaiah of rape—she’d gone to him, after all—butextortionwas gratifyingly accurate.
“The first time, I had no idea what to expect. The physical act struck me as awkward, but mercifully brief. Not painful so much as undignified. The second time, I approached the occasion with dread. The third time, I dosed myself with the poppy, and the bargain was met. As far as I know, Isaiah has not spoken a word of our dealings to anybody.”
“Yet.”
Dorcas closed her eyes and gave Alasdhair her weight, the better to memorize the feel and goodness of him. “I was tempted to drink that entire bottle of laudanum and to leave a note:Mornebeth is to blame.But the matter would have been kept quiet, and he would have emerged unscathed. I would have been remembered as yet another lovesick, hysterical female. I could not give him that satisfaction.”
“So you’ll give him the satisfaction of marrying you instead?”
“If I must. He has connections, Alasdhair, and any accusations I made now would have no credibility. I went to him all those years ago—he insisted on that. His grandmother’s town house was unoccupied that summer, and I went there at the times of his choosing to disport in the manner of his choosing. Ischemedto tryst with him, lied to my father about where I was going, and pleaded a headache when I returned home so I could soak in the hottest baths I could stand.”
The interludes with Isaiah had been tawdry and brief, but the memories of what had come after… Feeling unclean, brittle, volatile, nervous, forgetful… Dropping things, stumbling, avoiding mirrors, and then peering into them endlessly to practice appearingnormal.
“You intend to marry a man you hate.”
“A man I will never love, but who will not threaten my father or brother as long as I am his wife.”
“Perhaps not,” Alasdhair said, rising, “but he will continue to threatenyou. If you are not the perfect wife—and even if you are perfect—he will find ways to make you pay. He can have you committed to an asylum, Dorcas. Have you thought of that?”
Of course she had. “He won’t do that if I’m married to him. A man with an insane wife cannot advance in the Church.”
Alasdhair knelt by the bed and held out one of her boots. “So the Church will protect you? The Church that would have condemned your father and brother over a handful of stupid gambling markers will suddenly hold Mornebeth accountable for putting away a wife he’ll quietly grumble about for years first?” Alasdhair slipped her boots onto her feet, his touch gentle as always. “Though, of course, he’ll pray for you without ceasing, to hear him tell it.”
Dorcas tucked her hands under her thighs lest she yield to the temptation to touch Alasdhair again. “He won’t grumble. That would be unsaintly, and Isaiah has the world convinced he’s a saint.”
Alasdhair did up the laces, snugly but not too tightly. “I had a commanding officer like him, Dorcas, the rotten blighter I spoke of to you earlier. Dunacre told such bouncers in the officers’ mess, and he was so convincing… Mornebeth won’t complain about his wife, he’ll ask others to keep her in their prayers. He’ll admit to being worried about her. He’ll pretend he’s told you something, then look concerned in front of others when you appear to have no recollection of it.”
