Page 65 of The Damsel
He shook his head, taking hold of her shoulders and pulling her against him. “You cannot know that. If he’d been hurting her all this time, he would have killed her eventually.”
“He has to pay.”
“Then we will go to a magistrate.”
She stiffened, her cheeks flushing as she became more agitated by the second. “Magistrates are all but useless, and you know it! The only reason one became involved in Bertram’s case was because of generous compensation from the Earl of Hartmoor. Some of us do not have that much money or influence to throw around, so we use the only tools we have at our disposal.”
“Cass, he could hurt you, or kill you! Is this revenge vendetta worth your life?”
“Yes!” she screamed, taking hold of his lapels and shaking him.
He furrowed his brow, trying to understand, wanting to know why she had been so reckless with her own well-being. “Why?”
“I can’t stop,” she said, her eyes darting as she seemed to begin retreating into herself again. “I have to fight.”
He tightened his grip on her arms, determined not to give up, not to allow her to go on hiding from him. “Tell me why, Cass.”
“Because I didn’t fighthim!” she wailed, more tears springing to her eyes. “Because when Bertram overpowered me, I did nothing to stop him. I laid there and let him have me!”
Chapter 11
Cassandra clenched her hands together, staring at her interlaced fingers as her knuckles began to whiten. She hadn’t meant to blurt out her secret, but the words had come tumbling out against her will. The shame of her admission had stunned her into silence for a moment, and apparently it had done the same to Robert. He stood there looking at her with sorrow in his eyes, his mouth turned down into a solemn frown. He seemed to be waiting for her to finish telling him why she couldn’t stop fighting, why giving up was completely out of the question.
What else could she do but tell him? He’d come all this way to try to stop her without understanding her reasons. He loved her—she believed that with her whole heart. Why else would he endure her shifting moods and secrecy? Why else would he stay when she’d done everything she could to chase him away?
“We were in a carriage returning from an afternoon at The British Museum,” she said, still avoiding his gaze. “We’d been courting for weeks, and he’d charmed me so thoroughly I lost hold of all my good sense. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like the ‘plain Lane daughter’. I wasn’t a wallflower. The son of an earl thought me beautiful—he said so all the time. He hung onto every word I said and showed me affection whenever he could. He sent me flowers and called upon me at home, and made mention of marriage often. He was perfect … and I was in love.”
She paused, taking a deep breath and swallowing the acidic bile stinging the back of her throat. She’d told this tale many times—to her mother and sisters, to Bertram’s other victims, to Randall. It had been some time since relating it had put her in such an emotional state.
It was Robert. He had pried into her soul and unearthed the feelings she’d suppressed concerning these memories. Inhibiting it became difficult with him looking at her as if feeling it all right along with her.
“He was very good at fooling people,” Robert offered. “It was no fault of your own.”
Cassandra shrugged off his reassurance. It did nothing to make her feel better about letting herself fall into his trap.
“I knew better than to let him kiss me and take other liberties with my body when no one could see. But I’d never felt desired before … never been kissed, never been touched in a sensual way. All the years I envied Amaryllis and Pandora for the attention and admiration their looks had earned them faded away into nothing. Because a handsome, charming man who was popular with thetonliked me. He wantedmewhen he could have had any other young debutante. I have to admit that the attention and the way he made me feel … it was addicting.”
He nodded as if in understanding, but kept quiet, seeming content to listen.
“That day in the carriage, we were without my chaperone. I’d been paying my abigail to go for walks in the park, or spend time in circulating libraries or coffee houses while I went off with Bertram. We’d been carrying on this way for a fortnight by then, and each time I found myself alone with him, he pushed our encounters farther and farther. I’d always insist we stop before things went too far. The fear of ruination held me back from allowing him to make love to me, even though I wanted it … I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything. But after we’d left the museum and he began kissing me again, touching me, trying to lift my skirts … it didn’t feel right. Everything was different than it had been before, and he was—not himself, or rather, not the man I’d come to know. He was far too aggressive, ignoring me when I told him he ought to stop and return me home. He’d instructed his driver to take the long route back to Hyde Park, where my chaperone waited for us to return. I know now he did it on purpose, to give himself more time to …”
“You don’t have to do this,” Robert insisted. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”
She shook her head and met his gaze at last. He looked as if every word of her account was making him sick, his hands clenched at his sides.
“I have to,” she whispered. “You need to understand …. I need to tell you this.”
He clenched his jaw, but nodded anyway, freeing her to continue.
“It did not take me long to understand what was happening. He wrestled me to my knees on the carriage, then bent me over the seat. I struggled, but he was too strong, his weight pressing me into the seat until I could barely draw breath. He lifted my skirts and told me I was a good girl for not fighting him. He knew I wanted it, so there was no use pretending otherwise.”
“Cass—”
“I laid my head down and gave in,” she said, her words ground out from between clenched teeth. Her eyes brimmed with tears again, but she blinked them back, determined to get through this. “I didn’t scream … I fell silent after my pleas for him to stop went unheeded. I didn’t kick or flail or try to hit him. I just … I yielded and let him do what he wanted.”
“You were frightened,” Robert argued. “He overpowered you, he would have hurt you worse if you’d fought him—we know that based off the other women’s’ testimony. You did what you had to do to survive.”
“I was weak!” she bellowed. “Can’t you see that? My body was on the line, and I laid there and let him have it … stunned into submission so fast it was laughable.”
