Her father took his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, where the frame of his spectacles had left a pink indentation. But he didn’t say anything in response.
“Don’t you understand that I’m not your little girl anymore?” she demanded.
“No. You’ve grown older,” he said quietly.
“Grown older? Is that what you think I’ve done? That’s all you think happened to me? That I just grew older?”
He gave her a helpless shrug. “Well, yes. I do wish it hadn’t happened all at once, the way it did, but…” Another shrug. “I never really thought about putting you away. I suppose almost anyone else would say that was a mistake. But I didn’t want to.”
“You didn’t even give me new rules, no new strictures. You let me walk out with Grantham, knowing that I was the sort of woman who might…”
She didn’t finish the answer. She was the sort of woman who might fall prey to a man like that. A darkly handsome man, possessed of a particularly blunt style of speaking. She might let him touch her, kiss her. She might thrill when he did it and want more.
His eyebrows rose. “I ask again, am I going to have to have words with the man?”
“No!”
He gestured with his hand to his desk drawer. “Because if necessary, I could fetch my pistol and—”
“No!” she exclaimed, horrified. “No. But do you remember who he is?”
Her father frowned. “He’s a doctor. Is there something else I should know?”
“He was with Parwine. When…”
Her father’s face went white. He hadn’t known. Her parents had been so focused on her on that day that she didn’t think they had been aware of anyone else. Lydia had been the one staring across the room, glaring at that strange young man who watched her so silently.
Her father’s hand drifted towards his drawer once again. “Is Grantham using what he knows to cause you harm?” His voice was a whisper.
She shook her head. “He wouldn’t hurt me.” In fact, she was fairly certain she’d hurt him. “He only made me realize—”
He’d only made her realize how much she hurt.
“I don’t want to realize anything,” she finally said.
Those words sounded awful spoken aloud. They rang out in the quiet of her father’s study. Lydia put her fingers to her lips, tentatively, testing to see if they’d come from her.
They had.
“Well, now,” her father said. “I guess you know why I didn’t put you away. Once you’re old enough to punish yourself, there’s no point in my doing it, too. And since I wasn’t so inclined, I didn’t.”
THE NEXT FEW DAYS SEEMED TO PASS IN A BLUR. Lydia smiled; she laughed. But she knew it all for lies.
A week before Christmas, she went out for a walk. She wrapped herself heavily, but no scarf, however thick, could keep her memories from her. And with the holiday so close, there was no avoiding those old memories.
Christmas bells reminded her of that long-ago time, the one she tried not to think about. She’d spent years telling herself that it was as if nothing had happened. That she was strong, because she could set aside those months when she’d been so casually used by a man who cared nothing for her. That she had suffered once on that Christmas Eve when everything had gone wrong, but that she’d overcome it. That she’d learned to laugh and smile, and that she had gone on, unharmed by those events.
She’d lied to herself. And she hadn’t understood how deep those lies ran.
Because it wasn’t until a man had kissed her and called her darling, had said he wanted to marry her, that all those old feelings had come rushing back. It had been as if she were fifteen again, naïve and hopeful, believing everything he said. Letting him touch her. It didn’t matter that Jonas had been sincere. It didn’t matter how she felt about him. She’d felt her own physical desire sitting on her like a nauseating reminder of what could happen. Her gut had cramped, and she’d run away.
And now…
Now, she didn’t even know what she wanted.
At the outdoors market, she smelled the sharp, sweet scent of wassail, cinnamon and orange slices wafting from a pot, and she remembered choking down that bitter solution that Parwine had recommended, not knowing what she was doing. She saw a branch of holly decorating a plate of gingerbread, and she remembered her father trying to put a good face on a holiday where Lydia could only huddle in bed, doubled over from the pain.
There was the mistletoe piled on a market table, a poisonous, parasitic reminder that kisses could lie.
She ducked down a side street, but holiday cheer followed her there, too. Bells rang as doors opened; ivy graced shop windows. Bakeries let off clouds of sweet-smelling spice as people ducked in and out for cinnamon bread. She smiled and wished everyone she saw a happy holiday, but Jonas Grantham had been right. Saying Christmas was happy didn’t make it so.
There was only one place that she could find to escape. Down a smaller street, a church waited. Its small, quiet collection of gravestones was the only surcease she found from the unrelenting cheer of the season.
She escaped into the middle of it, and there, with cold stones surrounding her, sat on a bench and wept. For so long, she hadn’t let herself feel anything at all. She’d smiled and laughed and ignored the harm that had been done. But deep inside, she hadn’t stopped wanting, and no matter how she’d tried, no matter what lies she told herself, she had still hurt.
The little churchyard was isolated, fronted only by a quiet residential street. For minutes, nobody passed; when somebody did, he didn’t look her way. She held her breath. No reason for him to look in the yard. No reason for him to look at her at all. He passed the black iron gate in the stone wall.
She caught sight of a black bag, and her breath caught. Any number of gentlemen carried black bags. They were common, and if this one was wider and deeper than usual…
He stopped in his tracks and turned to her.
Oh God, it was Jonas Grantham. She didn’t want him to see her now. She didn’t want to see him ever.
There was no way to hide the tears tracking down her face. Still, she reached hastily for a handkerchief. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, hoping against hope…
But no; he unlatched the gate and came up the walk. He didn’t approach swiftly. He was advancing with all the care of a predator, walking like a cat on a tightrope, one foot in front of the other. And she was too weary to scurry away.