Page 34 of Dangerous Illusions (Dangerous #1)

D AINTRY STARED AT SUSAN in disbelief. “Who did this to you? Here, sit down,” she added quickly when her sister swayed. Taking her by the arm, she led her to the dressing chair and pushed her down upon it. “Tell me now. How did this happen?”

Susan opened her mouth, then closed it, squeezing her eyes shut at the same time. When she opened them again, tears glistened on her lashes and spilled down her cheeks. “I thought it would be easy to tell you,” she whispered, “but it isn’t.”

Sudden, unwelcome suspicion leapt to Daintry’s mind. “But surely it is not true that you and Deverill—”

“Oh, no! Never!”

“But he received a letter from Geoffrey that said—”

“I know. I had received a letter, too, unsigned but saying Deverill cared for me and wanted to look after me. Geoffrey read it before ever I saw it, of course. He reads all my letters.” A wracking sob shook her body. “H-he was f-furious with me.”

“He did this—beat you like this—and accused Deverill of trifling, all because someone told you Deverill wanted to look after you? But how could he believe you were a party to such a thing? He must know you are the most dutiful of wives.”

“Oh, yes,” Susan said, looking away. “I am dutiful, and obedient, and submissive to all of Geoffrey’s wishes.” Her tone was exceedingly bitter.

“But then how could he believe—”

“Geoffrey believes what he chooses to believe.”

“But to have done this, he must have gone quite mad.”

“He was certainly enraged,” Susan said wearily, swallowing another sob. “He is frequently enraged.”

Daintry stared at her. “What can you mean? He has never been so angry as to beat you before.”

Susan was silent. Her shoulders slumped. She stared bleakly at the carpet.

“Has he?” Daintry touched her shoulder, meaning to make her turn and look up at her so that she could see her expression more easily. When Susan winced and jerked away, she exclaimed, “Good God, what else has he done to you?”

“No more than it is his legal right to do,” Susan muttered. “I displeased him. I frequently displease him, though God knows I try very hard not to do so. Even when he brought his mistress home and informed me that she was going to remain as our guest, I tried my best to be the perfect wife.”

“His mistress! Lady Catherine?”

“Oh, yes, dear Catherine. It is done in the best families, you know. Duchess Georgiana put up with Devonshire’s mistress for years before his death, and Lady Chelsea has put up with Caro What-not these past ten years and more.

At least Catherine can be pleasant when she wishes to be.

She is practical, too,” Susan added with a grimace.

“She made it perfectly clear—to me, at least—that it is because she has so little money of her own and dislikes Yorkshire that she finds it convenient to live with us.”

“But…” Daintry remembered her suspicions and how easy it had been to dismiss them. “But I don’t understand. Your marriage always seemed so happy. You always seemed so happy.”

“Did I? Perhaps that is because I was terrified to seem otherwise.” Susan looked directly at her for the first time.

“Remember when Geoffrey interrupted our tête à tête at Mount Edgcumbe, how solicitous he was about brushing my hair? He even asked you to hand him that dreadful hairbrush.” She shuddered.

“H-he was displeased that after being forced to take second place to his mistress at home, and then in the coach all day, I had dared to behave in such a manner as to draw attention to myself.”

“He hit you when I left?” Daintry felt a fury rising within her unlike any she could remember feeling before. “I am more sorry than I can say if I said or did anything to cause him to hurt you,” she said, struggling to keep her voice under control.

“It was not your fault. It was mine. It is always mine. I should not have come here.” She looked around the room much, Daintry thought, like an animal in a trap. “He will come after me, and when he does …” Her face grew white.

Daintry moved to pull the bell, and when Susan protested, said, “I am sending for Nance to sit with you while I find Aunt Ophelia. She will know what to do. I don’t, but I promise, I will do everything in my power to see that Geoffrey never hurts you like this again.”

When Nance entered and gasped at the sight of Susan’s face, Daintry said crisply, “Take care of her, and say nothing to anyone about her condition. She will stay here in my room until I can talk with Lady Ophelia. And, Nance, I mean not one word about this below stairs. Do you understand me?”

“I do,” Nance said grimly, still staring in shock at Susan, “but you are mistaken if you think you can interfere in this business, Miss Daintry. If those bruises mean what I suspect they do, Sir Geoffrey will be hard upon her heels. How is it he did not catch you up on the road, Miss Susan?”

“He went riding with his cousin,” Susan whispered. “They did not mean to return until late afternoon.”

Daintry, not waiting to hear more, left them and went in search of Lady Ophelia, whom she found in the drawing room with Lady St. Merryn and Miss Davies.

Before she could think of a tactful way to draw her great-aunt away from the others, her mother said, “Jago tells me Susan and Melissa have arrived, but if that is the case, where are they, my dear? Surely Susan must know that I want to see her.”

“She is … she is ill, Mama,” Daintry said, inventing swiftly and casting a beseeching glance at Lady Ophelia. “I came down to ask Aunt Ophelia if she would recommend one of her remedies that might be of some help.”

Miss Davies said brightly, “Oh, I’ll go up to her at once, shall I, Letitia dear? I am sure I will know precisely what to do for her. Perhaps a hot brick to her feet, or a soothing tisane. I concoct a very fine tisane, you know.”

Lady St. Merryn reached for her salts bottle. “Is she very ill, Daintry? Are we likely to catch something from her? If you go to her, Ethelinda, you must be careful not to carry her illness back to me. I am in no fit state—”

“Cousin Ethelinda need not go upstairs at all, Mama,” Daintry said. “I don’t want her, only Aunt Ophelia.”

“Oh, my dear,” Lady St. Merryn said faintly, “is that how little you care for my health? You must know that Aunt Ophelia will not be at all cautious and, if Susan is truly ill, will not even admit the possibility that I might contract her illness.”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Mama,” Daintry said, exasperated, “you will not catch anything from Susan.”

“And just how can you be so certain of that, miss?”

“Because she is not really ill, or not… not in the way you mean,” she added, hoping to cover the slip.

But it was too late. “What do you mean?” Lady St. Merryn said, sitting up. “Is she with child? Is that it? Oh, Geoffrey will be so pleased. He has wanted a son so desperately, and it has seemed so unnatural of Susan not to provide him with one.”

“Geoffrey is not pleased,” Daintry retorted. “If you must know, Mama, Susan came to us for sanctuary because her odious husband beat her so that she can hardly stand. Her face is bruised beyond recognition. I just hope he has broken no bones.”

Lady St. Merryn moaned and fell back against her cushions, her salts bottle firmly clutched beneath her nose. “Oh, what has Susan done?” she moaned. “She was always such a good, obedient child. What dreadful thing can she have done?”

“She did nothing at all,” Daintry said angrily.

“Some wicked person wrote her a disgusting letter, claiming Deverill had singled her out for his attentions. Geoffrey read it, of course, and although he must have known perfectly well it was all a sham, he used it as an excuse to beat her. Moreover, if I am not greatly mistaken, he has beaten her many times before now with even less cause to do so.”

“But he must have had cause,” Cousin Ethelinda said reasonably. “Why else would a gentleman do such a thing? And it is not as if Deverill were a saint, you know, for he was a member of Lord Hill’s staff, after all, and we all know what those—”

“I don’t know what would make any man beat his wife like Geoffrey has beaten Susan,” Daintry interjected, unwilling to hear anything more against Deverill, “but if you think my sister, of all people, has done such dreadful things that… Oh, I have no patience for this. The whole notion is absurd.”

“Where is she?” Lady Ophelia asked, getting to her feet.

“In my bedchamber, ma’am,” Daintry said gratefully. “If you will go to her, I will find my father. He must be told about this if he is to protect her. She fears Geoffrey might be hot on her heels, and I for one don’t doubt that he must be.”

Lady St. Merryn sniffed. “Well, I do not believe a word of this. Sir Geoffrey Seacourt is a perfectly charming man who would never lift a finger to harm anyone, let alone a defenseless female. If he has punished Susan, she must have deserved it, and that is all there is about it. It is a husband’s right—indeed, his duty—to punish his wife if she misbehaves. ”

“Well, if any man did to another what Geoffrey has done to Susan, he would be thrown in prison,” Daintry snapped. “Even my father will agree to that much, once he sees her poor face.”

And with that, she left the room to search for St. Merryn, finding him in his library, where he was reading his afternoon post. He was none too pleased to be interrupted.

Looking up at her over his wire-rimmed spectacles, he said, “What is it, girl? I’m busy.”

“Papa, Susan is here.”

“What? Surely, we were not expecting them again so soon.”

“No, sir, but she has been dreadfully hurt, and she wants to stay here.”

“Stay here! What nonsense is this? Got a perfectly good home of her own and a husband to look after her, don’t she?”

“Geoffrey hurt her,” Daintry said, striving to remain calm so as not to arouse his temper. “She has run away from him.”

“What’s that you say?”

“She has run away, Papa, because Geoffrey beats her.”

He shrugged. “If she has run away, she must go back.”