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Even Lord Brighton, it seemed, could never escape.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The axles creaked; the horses' hooves clopped along gravel trails, down the steep hill leading to Norbury Manor; thunder growled ominously as rain pattered on top of the carriage. If terror, pain and heartbreak hadn't already occupied her every sense, Isobel may have been quite taken by the comfort of the carriage; far more inviting than poor Mr. Trevingham's rickety wooden cart, its seats felt like a cloud, stuffed with goose-down and covered in violet, plush velvet. Lanterns lit the inside of the cabin, warding away the foreboding dark of the storm without. In truth she could think about nothing - not the beauty of the white steeds, nor the jolly chatter of the driver to his passengers, nor could she think about just how surprisingly smooth the ride felt.
All she could think on was Lord Brighton - crested with the glow of white lightning, his expression broken, his spirit crushed; chains shackled so tightly to the both of them, keeping them prisoners of the lies, betrayal and scandal that rocked so much of northern England. Nor could she stop thinking on the terror that filled her each time she thought on her erstwhile companion, stuffed up close to her upon the carriage seat - Lord Miller, the Duke of Thrushmore, who now shamelessly crowded Lady Duskwood's space; he treated her as his property, and for all purposes, perhaps - now that he owned her debts, he owned her, something which brought him immense, perverse joy.
"Come now, Lady Duskwood, am I truly the detestable toad you insisted I was, in Lord Brighton's parlor?" Lord Miller asked, wearing that mask that so disgusted her - the mask of the gentleman, disguising his wicked lust and thirst for domineering control over the innocent woman. "Surely I must have some features that entice you? If not, I'm certain you'll learn to appreciate me, in time," he added cheerily.
"I'll quite appreciate when you lay buried beside your unfortunately late wife, so that I might trod upon your shriveled corpse, m'lord," Isobel spat back at the duke, her eyes watching as the storm-stricken countryside rolled alongside the carriage. She felt the jab strike quite rough, as the duke, who had been so full of chatter thus far in the course of their journey, fell silent, no doubt nursing the wound struck by Lady Isobel's verbal rapier-strike. She smirked, quietly satisfied at having caused him pause with the tip of her sharpened wit.
"That's hardly a wish befitting a proper lady, though I'll quite indulge you for a moment in asking - are you aware of just how my lovely late wife passed, Lady Duskwood?" the duke's voice fell cold, and Isobel suddenly shivered at just how frigid and, frankly, dangerous his voice sounded. She finally looked at him - the old man, wrapped in his oversized suit and his tall hat, always wanting to look larger than his diminutive, shrinking, elderly body did.
"A stark and sudden illness," Isobel recalled, though suddenly she did not trust her own words.
"Lady Willemer, she was such a sweet woman," the duke recalled, his voice reminiscent, but... off, vexing in some manner that startled Isobel to her core. "A proper lady, in every inescapable sense. From a good family, taught proper manners... in many ways, nothing like you, Lady Duskwood," he sneered, his hand grasping at Isobel's wrist; she pulled it away, but he persisted, grabbing her hand forcefully. She yelped, but he held on to it tightly. "Lady Willemer, she was a proper woman in so many ways, Lady Duskwood... except that she refused her husband's wishes," he whispered into her ear, taking sadistic glee in the pain his squeezing grasp inflicted upon Isobel.
"Wh-what did you do?!" she said, quite startled at the sudden, sinister nature of the conversation.
"The Lady Willemer's family adored me... quite a pity that after we married and she moved to my estate, she no longer felt the same. I told her, she would learn to love me," the duke recalled, more and more twisted delight in each of his words as he told the story, almost aroused by it. "...but she refused. Like you, Lady Duskwood, she claimed I had deceived her family; deceived everyone. She even dared to claim I was not a proper gentleman. Can you believe, a woman like that, making such a bold claim?" he asked; Isobel looked away, sniffling through tears and pain, but the duke enjoyed her hurt enough that he wanted to see it, and grasped her chin, wrenching her face towards his. She closed her eyes, refusing to look at him.
"Truly unfortunate as it as, her father fell in to some manner of debt, and of course, he asked me to assist... the debt would have put most of the assets of Lady Willemer's family in my hands. How could a brilliant gentleman like myself not seize such an opportunity?" Lord Miller's sinister tone seethed with arrogant satisfaction. "Of course, having divined my plan for claiming her family, Lady Willemer resolved to warn her father, and to stop me..." Isobel's eyes shot open in grim realization, her lips parted in abject terror.
"You... you couldn't have!..." she exclaimed in a harsh whisper.
"My lovely wife, she always had such trouble, such a frail constitution... anything, certainly, could have been a danger to her... particularly a dangerous solution, dropped unceremoniously into her stew, may have presented a severe danger," he recalled, more and more pleased with his vicious handiwork.
"You poisoned her," Isobel swallowed hard. "You monster."
"Her father wept with me, and I comforted him with promises of financial assistance. Certain as the sun rising, he came to me, and the Willemer family will never know what it is to be solvent again, m'lady. And have you heard the rumors? That he ran off and used the wealth to cover gambling debts? Ruinous. Such an unfortunate situation, the Willemer family has endured," he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in facetious sorrow. "So tragic, indeed."
"You'll not get away with this," Isobel hissed, tears staining her cheeks. He viciously grasped her thigh with his hand, and when she tried to pull away, his arm lassoed her body, pulling her close. He licked her ear as she squirmed in pained protest against the disgusting duke's strength; he pressed his lips against hers, and it hurt; it hurt not just her body, but her soul, to feel a man so wretched claiming her lips.
"And now you know the true price of the words and deeds you've committed, you harlot," the duke whispered in hot, filthy bursts against Isobel's lips as she struggled weakly. "You belong to me. Your soul, your name - your life, if you know what's best for you. Everything, everyone you care about - they're in my debt, little whore," the duke growled. "And if you displease me, you can forget about those silly thoughts of self-murder you voiced, lovely. I'll be certain to do the favor for you, once the time is right," he huffed, before pressing another disgusting kiss against Lady Duskwood's struggling, yelping lips. She wretched, quaking, full of fear and full of hate.
"You wouldn't dare," she spat at him.
"I've dared before, and won - and you think any would worry on the fate of a seductress harlot who angled at not just Lord Brighton's fortune, but my own?" he smirked evilly. "You're nothing but what I make you out to be, to the simpletons who rule these lands."
"I'll never love you," she hissed.
"Oh, I certainly don't expect you to, nor does it quite matter to me," he said, calmly satisfied. "But you will suffer whatever it is I wish to inflict upon you, Lady Duskwood," he drew closer, letting his fantasies fill her ear. "You will not enjoy it. I will not make you feel good - I will not make you feel free, as your precious Lord Brighton has. I will not give you what you like. I will take what I want," he promised in his dark and displeasing tone, "and you will lay there, and you will give it." He ran his hands along the inside of her thighs; she squeezed her legs together, but he would not be stopped now, forcing them apart to her quiet protests. He unceremoniously slammed the small window behind the driver's ears shut; she couldn't scream, now.
"Stop! You can't," she whimpered.
"I can't? You belong to me, now," the duke snarled. "You'll listen to every last thing I have to say. You'll listen to just how much you're going to suffer. I'll claim your body every day if I wish. More than once, if I wish. I will not be gentle. I will not do the things you like," he continued, undeterred by her struggles and the tears in her eyes. "My tongue will taste every inch of your body, and you will obey me when I tell you to get onto your knees and do everything I wish. You will have no choice. And you remember what happens if you displease me, don't you?" the duke threatened. She refused to answer, and he grasped her hips harshly, digging his hands into them. "Don't you?" he demanded.
"Yes! Please, stop," she begged.
"That's what I want to hear. Obedience. I want to hear you plead," he huffed, "so that I can refuse you. So that I can do what I want. Always, what I want," he grinned. "Do you understand?"
Knock knock knock!
A quiet rapping on the small door he had slid shut interrupted the lord; he sighed in irritation, trying to put back on that wicked mask he wore for the world.
"What's the trouble?" he
questioned, annoyed, still harshly holding on to Lady Isobel, who laid frozen in fear across the carriage's seat. Silence. Then, another series of knocks, and what sounded like a pitched scuffle among the patter of rain on the roof. The Duke of Thrushmore sighed in irritation; the axles of the carriage stopped creaking, and a muffled whinny from a horse followed the sigh. "Why have we stopped?" he demanded. Silence. Isobel held her breath, eyes darting around the cabin, tense and full of tremors of horror. Another frustrated grunt and the filthy duke crawled to the sliding window to the driver.
