Nora’s second Season opened with a spectacular wedding.
Not hers, of course. Richard Jameson, the Duke of Chalford, married the Lady Beatrix Boltborne in a lavish, nearly regal ceremony at St. George’s. Nora sat in the pews, enclosed between her father and her brother, and wished the blessed couple all the happiness they deserved. The new duchess was sure to breed her duke a herd of fat, ginger heirs.
Two such beautiful, elegant, socially perfect people coming together was like a star exploding over the season and showering sparks of grandeur throughout Westminster. Everything Nora had experienced the year before had doubled in intensity. The balls were more extravagant, the dinners more lavish, the competition among the ladies more fierce. The Duke’s wedding had reminded them all what they strove for, and they’d tightened their corsets a bit more snugly, styled their hair a bit more elaborately, shown their shoulders a bit more cheekily.
Into this fashionable coliseum, Nora had wandered unarmed and unshielded, and caring even less than the year before about any of it. And for that, she was, in her family’s estimation, having a much better outing this year. In four weeks, she hadn’t ruffled a single feather or raised a single eyebrow. She sat at tables and stood in ballrooms. She danced when she was asked and smiled when she was addressed, and she let it all pass by her without more interaction than that.
She’d turned herself into a mannequin, and eligible young lords were paying attention to her again.
Not the most eligible young lords, of course. Now, instead of scandalous, she was dull. She wasn’t trying to dazzle them, and so they weren’t. But she had become acceptable and respectable. Several times, she’d heard mutters at her back that she’d been ‘broken.’ And perhaps that was true.
Her father was thrilled. He and her aunt were both sure she’d have at least one offer of marriage before the summer was up. Perhaps she would. It didn’t matter.
She sat at her writing desk and stared out the window, forgetting the pen in her hand and the sentence she’d started, thanking last night’s hostess for the lovely dinner. On a branch of the stately oak not far from the window, a turtle dove perched on her nest, feeding her single chick. Her mate was perched on the branch above, standing watch over his family.
Maybe it wasn’t so terrible, the role women were supposed to play. The whole animal kingdom seemed to agree—females made babies, and males sheltered them.
Then why had God seen fit to give human females philosophical brains? Why torture them so if they weren’t to be allowed to use their minds? If she’d been a turtle dove, she’d have lived on instinct and not questioned her lot.
“Nora.”
Nora sighed and swiveled in her seat, away from the window, to her brother, standing just at the library door, as if he needed permission to enter. It was she who’d had to be granted permission to enter the library again—one of the boons her father had bestowed on her in his pleasure at her behavior. She wasn’t allowed to touch the books, of course. She couldn’t be trusted with their contents.
“Christopher. What are you doing here?”
He stepped into the room. “I’m free this afternoon. I was wondering if you’d like some fresh air. We could drive out of the city for an hour or two.”
She had no intention of willingly spending time with her brother ever again in her life. “Thank you for the offer, but I’m sorry. My schedule is full today.”
“It’s not. I asked Gaines when I came in. You’re home tonight until dinner.” He crossed the room and sat on the chair nearest her desk. Setting his elbow on his knee and leaning toward her, his expression sad and beseeching, he said, “It’s been months since you’ve even smiled at me, Nono. I miss you.”
Nora’s eyes squeezed shut as the old nickname sliced through her heart and dragged all the years of her devotion to her brother with it, but she tried not to show any feeling otherwise. “I’m otherwise engaged today. Thank you for thinking of me.”
“Don’t treat me like an acquaintance you can’t tolerate. I’m your brother, and I’ve loved you best of everyone in the world since the day you were born. Fight with me. Yell and howl. Stomp your feet. Let’s have it out. Bring my wild little Nono back.”
She ignored him, finishing the thank you note and folding it neatly. When she looked up again, his features had hardened, and he sat straight up.
“No. Enough of this nonsense. It stops here.”
Her apparent lack of interest hurt him, as she wanted, and she should simply have repeated her politely lifeless refusal. She opened her mouth to do just that. But the turtle doves were on her mind, living their lives with thoughtless instinct, unaware that they were so much freer than she, beyond the walls that held her in. Instead, Nora said, “Because you say so? And if I say otherwise?”
“I don’t understand why you’re so angry, Nora. I’m on your side. I know what Frazier did.” Her brother cast a leery glance around the room, though their father was away for the afternoon, and they were alone. “He took your virtue and left you, and I’ve kept that secret. It’s not I who wronged you, except to have brought him into your life. For that, do I still deserve your scorn?”
“Why did he leave, Christopher?”
“Because he’s a cad. I misjudged him terribly, and for that I will always be sorry.”
“You’re a liar.” She lifted the papers from her box of stationery and pulled back the decorative lining. When she’d left Tarrindale, she’d found a new hiding place for William’s note, so she could keep it with her. With a delicate touch, she opened the treasured paper, careful of the softening frays at the folds. She spread it out on the desk so her brother could read it, but kept her hand on it, so he couldn’t steal it away from her.
He read it, then lifted his eyes to hers. She’d hoped to see shame in those eyes, their colour so much like her own, but his gaze was coolly resolute. “I did send him away, yes. That fact changes nothing of the truth. He used you, ruined you, and I sent him away for it. Moreover, he left.”
“How did he ruin me? He wanted to marry me. I wanted to marry him. He did nothing to me I didn’t want.”
Christopher’s cheeks washed out. “Don’t say that.”
“Don’t speak the truth? Or would you prefer another truth? I pursued him, you know. I dragged him into my bedroom and demanded he make love to me. For all the reasons you cite, he wanted to go, but I wouldn’t let him. He wanted to stop, but I wanted more. I wanted him to do everything to me.”
“Nora, enough!”
“Would you rather he’d forced me?”
His hands became fists and lifted to his chest. “If he’d forced you, I’d’ve killed him on the spot.”
“So, then, you know I wanted what we did. You merely don’t want me to talk about it. You don’t want me to say I wanted it, or asked for it, or enjoyed it.”
He leapt from the chair and stalked across the room, raking his hands through his blond hair. He closed the library door firmly and stalked back to hunker before her. “Nora, stop! Of course I don’t want you to say it. You’re my little sister! I don’t want such things known about you! Do you know what people would think of you? What they would say?”
“Is it what you think of the women you seduce?”
She’d expected that strike to hit a target, but he shook it away. “I don’t seduce virgins. The women I spend time with are women.”
“And what am I?”
He looked up at her so helplessly that Nora nearly felt compassion for him. “My sister. My little Nono.”
She set that compassion away, because there was one more truth to air. “You’re a hypocrite and a liar, Christopher. What’s more, I know exactly why William left. You threatened me, didn’t you? You told him you’d hurt me if he stayed. What was it—did you threaten to tell Father?”
Until this moment, she’d only suspected as much, but she saw in his eyes—finally filled with the shame she sought—that it was true. There was relief, at least, in the knowing. So much relief that she actually laughed. The sound scraped at her throat. “No, Christopher, I don’t want to take a drive with you. I’m otherwise engaged. Thank you for thinking of me.”
She tried to turn in her chair and resume her correspondence, but he grabbed her legs and held her in place. “Nora, I wouldn’t have told him. I never will. I sent Frazier away to protect you, and I’m not sorry for it. He took something precious from you. A man who would do what he did has no honour.”
“What he did was respect me as a human being who knows her own mind. He let me choose for myself. He would have married me. I gave that precious gift you all go on so much about to the person I wanted to have it. If indeed I am ruined, it’s because he’s not here, and that’s your fault. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have correspondence to attend to. Father will be home for tea, if you’d like to wait.”
Nora yanked her legs from his hold and went back to her vacuous notes and her vacant demeanor. Eventually her brother stood and left the library, and then the house.
Nora’s father had given over the great bulk of the chaperoning duties to Aunt Martha. Except for their daily ride on the Ladies’ Mile, and those few functions at which his attendance was specifically requested, he’d stepped back from the Season. Though neither he nor Aunt Martha has said so expressly, Nora assumed that they’d agreed she required a feminine guide—and, despite her aunt’s secret affections, she was probably an apt guide. She had, after all, succumbed, just as Nora would.
They rode in the carriage—motorcars terrified her aunt—toward a house in St. James’s, for yet another stuffy dinner in yet another stuffy drawing room. This one would be doubly stuffy, because a dreary rain had held the city in its grip for days. Nora leaned on the wall of the carriage and peered out the rain-speckled window at the people scurrying out of the weather as quickly as they could. A wet, colourless world in black and grey.
Though the trip was barely a mile, progress on the street was slow. They’d been stopped for several minutes, sitting in the dark carriage in silence. Nora no longer spoke to anyone unless she had no choice. Her aunt had given up trying.
Other than Aunt Martha’s occasional sighs, loud and rhetorical, the only sounds were the patter of rain on the carriage roof and the strangely singular buzz of the world outside.
The carriage lurched forward for a minute or so, then stopped again. Nora could tell that they were close enough to St. James’s that had they’d been in an open carriage, she’d have seen the iron fence surrounding the square.
“Perhaps we should just walk,” she muttered, still staring out the window.
“No, dove, we shouldn’t. You’ll ruin your pretty gown.”
A painful spasm of a laugh left Nora’s chest. Of course. The gown was the most important thing.
“Nora …” Aunt Martha began, but before she could say more, the window beside Nora’s head was struck with something wet and red, and she threw herself away from the glass in shock. A red smear oozed down the window, washing away in the rain. Was it blood?
Something else hit the carriage elsewhere with a thump. And another. Nora leaned to the window again, ignoring her aunt’s restraining grip on her arm. Another red thing hit the carriage, just beside the window—a tomato. Women were lined up on the street outside St. James’s Square, pelting rotten vegetables at the carriages on their way in. They stood silently in the rain, their hats drooping soggily, and pulled tomatoes, cabbages, turnips from sodden baskets.
Nora whipped around to see out the other side of the carriage—a line of women stood there, too. On that side, they held a long white banner, and she leaned over so she could read it. TO ASK FOR FREEDOM IS NOT A CRIME, it shouted in purple and green letters. FREE SUFFRAGE PRISONERS. At the bottom, in smaller letters, the sign identified the origin of the protest: The Women’s Social and Political Union. Mrs. Pankhurst’s organization.
They stood even as their missiles were thrown back at them, even as people on the street shoved them and hit them with umbrellas and fists. They didn’t fight back, except to save the banner when two men tried to yank it from their hands.
“Did you know about this?” Nora asked her aunt, who still held regular meetings of the Kensington Rose Club and funded their activities—not that she allowed Nora to attend, of course.
“No,” Aunt Martha muttered back. “They’re not wearing roses. But look—you see the pins on some of their coats? Those are hunger strike medals. And each bar on it is an instance they’ve been imprisoned.”
Nora stared out the red streaks of her window. The woman closest to their carriage hefted a rotted cabbage in her hand like a ball. She wore one of those medals, with three bars across its striped ribbon. Three times, she’d been incarcerated in the name of the cause.
She heaved the cabbage, and it struck the window. Nora didn’t flinch. Instead, she spread her hand on the glass. There was too much distance, too much weather, and too much sodden hat, to know for sure, but she tried to catch the woman’s eye and hold it.
Police whistles shrieked through the air, and some women ran, but others remained. As policemen grabbed them and dragged them off, they went limp, or stiff as boards.
The carriage lurched forward, and Nora pressed against the window, watching the suffragette. The woman had gone stiff, dragged off like a statue, and before Nora couldn’t see her anymore, she saw a bobby lift his nightstick and bash her unbending knees.
Tears rushed up and filled her head and, beset with rage and sorrow, Nora let them flow. “We have to do something!”
Aunt Martha sat stiffly, clasping her hands together in her lap, so tightly that her knuckles were white. “You can do nothing, Nora. And I am doing all I can.”
“You’re not. You’re not. You’re only writing cheques!”
Her aunt cast a glance toward the front of the carriage, as if she worried the driver, outside on his perch in the rain, could hear them. When she spoke, her words were frantic but hushed. “How do you think the women who lose their jobs and their homes and their children in this fight are able to survive, Nora? Because women like me write cheques! Not everyone has to stand on the street and throw garbage to be a warrior! Money is important!”
“But people are more important! If the only women who give the cause a face are those nobody thinks are important, then nobody important will care!”
“Some of us have more to lose than others, dove.”
“Auntie, you just said that the women doing the fighting and going to prison are losing their jobs and their homes and their children. What more do women like us have to lose than that?”
They finally passed into St. James’s Square. Aunt Martha saw the iron fence and grabbed Nora’s hand. “You’re too young to see all you could lose. What could I lose? There are people who know, Nora. About me. Not many, but enough. Do you understand? Over the years, things have slipped here and there. Were I ever to give them cause to hurt me, they could truly hurt me. I have a great deal to lose. My freedom. My sanity. My life. My love. Think what they would do to Sylvia, who hasn’t the protection of a title.”
As the carriage rocked to a halt at its destination, Nora sat back. How surreal it was to imagine sitting at dinner and performing her role of mannequin tonight, after everything she’d seen.
A footman opened the door, holding an umbrella, and Aunt Martha, with a lingering squeeze of Nora’s hand and a sharp look into her eyes, allowed herself to be helped out of the carriage. Another footman waited to help Nora in the same way.
She dried her eyes, took his hand, and let him help her down.
Generally, at such dinners—and everywhere else the noble set congregated in mixed groups—the talk around the table and in the drawing room was benign: the weather, recent parties, new engagements, plans for hunting or parties in the country after the Season, were all acceptable topics. But on this night, at the table of the Count Howsend and his newly presented daughter, Francine, nearly all of the guests had come through the same gauntlet, and they hadn’t made it through the entrée before Lord Brownhall could no longer suppress himself.
Lord Brownhall—Philip was his given name—was one of Nora’s more interested suitors this Season, and had been seated at her side tonight. His father was a lowly baron, and his fortune reflected it. He was also unusually long-lived. The younger Lord Brownhall was considerably older than most bachelors on the Season’s prowl. He was forty, or a bit past it, Nora thought. Not ugly, but not handsome, either. Balding, and going grey, he moved through the social events in an evident befuddlement, as if he didn’t quite understand what the young people were about these days or why he had to spend so much time with them.
Nora rather liked him, as far as she liked anyone. She wasn’t remotely attracted to him, but she’d had a thought or two that it wouldn’t be absolutely hellish to be his wife. Of the few suitors she had, he seemed the least offensive.
Until he opened his mouth at Lady Francine’s debut dinner.
“I say,” he said, having washed down a bite of sweetbreads with a sip of claret. “We had quite the entourage welcoming us tonight.”
“I’m terribly sorry about that,” Lady Francine murmured, the perfect hostess. “If I’d have known …”
“You couldn’t have known, my lady,” Lord Brownhall assured her. “They creep out when they’re least expected. Like the vermin they are.”
“Throwing garbage at us!” another young lord threw in.
“Might we discuss this later, gentlemen?” Lord Howsend asked. “Please—the ladies.” All the noble fathers read from the same script: protect the delicate sensibilities of ‘the ladies’ at all costs.
Nora glanced across the table, where her brother sat. His eyes were on her, like he was on guard, waiting to see if he’d need to step in. Aunt Martha, at his side, watched her as well.
Lord Brownhall bowed his head in apology. “Forgive me, my lord. I was only so enraged to see the ladies targeted. Lady Nora, your carriage was just ahead of mine. I saw several things hit your window. Were you harmed?”
“By rotten vegetables hitting the glass? Of course not. The women themselves were the only ones hurt. People were beating them. The police beat them.”
“Like the animals they are. Gorillas. They deserve everything they get and more.” He set a concerned hand over hers. “I was worried for you.”
Nora slid her hand from his and put it in her lap, where she clasped it with her other and tried as hard as she could to hold on, to remember she didn’t care, it didn’t matter, nothing mattered. She was a mannequin, and had nothing to offer, nothing to say. Just sit quietly and swallow what was given to her. Say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
The woman with the hunger strike medal and its three bars, pinned to a tattered coat, rose up in her vision, and Nora clamped her eyes shut and bowed her head, but that only clarified the image. She could see the woman’s eyes, staring at her, challenging her.
“Nora …” her brother said from across the table, across the world. His voice was calm, meant to soothe, but instead, it incited.
She looked up, and every eye around the table was on her. Every one. Even the footmen. They all waited to see if she would finally let her tongue loose.
With all the expectations that chafed at her, this one was positively liberating.
“They are not animals,” she said, forcing her voice to be calm. She focused on her aunt’s wary expression. “They are human beings. They are women.”
“Then they should act like it,” Lord Brownhall countered.
“And how, my lord, should a woman act?”
“Please,” Lord Howsend tried again.
Nora turned on him. “No, my lord. I truly want to know. In fact”—she threw her glance around the table—“I ask all you gentlemen. Describe your ideal woman. Does she even have a mouth? Oh, yes. She must have a mouth, mustn’t she? You wouldn’t want to do away with a hole to stuff your feeble cocks in, would you?”
If she’d stood up and ripped her bodice open, she would not have got a stronger reaction. The young women gasped so loudly they nearly screamed. Even the men gasped. Lord Howsend shot from his chair like a spear had come through his seat. The elder Lady Howsend swooned. Lady Francine dissolved at once into wild, wailing tears.
Aunt Martha cried out, “Nora!” and Christopher vaulted around the table. He grabbed her up, pinned her in his arms, and dragged her to the door.
Nora didn’t fight. She wanted to go.
At the doorway, her brother turned to their hostess. “Please forgive us, Lady Francine. My sister hasn’t been well.” With that, he swept Nora into his arms like a child and carried her out of the house, with Aunt Martha bustling behind.
“All will be well, little dove.” Aunt Martha patted Nora’s thigh. “It’s not so bad. In fact, you might even enjoy it. I know many women who do.”
Nora’s heart rattled in its cage, and she pulled the duvet up to her chin. The doctor had left an hour before, promising to return in an hour with ‘treatment supplies.’ She didn’t know what she was being treated for, but everyone else seemed to. “What is he going to do?”
Her aunt patted her thigh again. “It’s not so bad. Just relax.”
The door opened, and Nora’s father stepped in. “Come, Martha. Let’s leave the doctor to his work.” He gave Nora a solemn look—he hadn’t smiled at her since they’d come home the night before, after her dramatic performance at Lady Howsend’s dinner.
Aunt Martha gave her thigh one more pat and stood up from the side of the bed. She went to the door and let Nora’s father lead her out. In their place entered the doctor, and her father closed the door, leaving Nora alone with him.
This London doctor was younger than Dr. Davies but still substantially older than she. He was tall and portly, and wore pince-nez spectacles. His hands were smooth and cool and white as the belly of a dead fish.
Dr. Stanhope came to the side of the bed and smiled down at her. “All right, Lady Nora. There’s no need to be so worried. I’m going to help you, if you’ll help me. Will you?”
She nodded, because she was afraid of what might happen if she didn’t.
“Excellent. I’m going to turn my back and make some preparations. Whilst I do that, you’ll remove your drawers and get back under the covers. Understood?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s necessary for the treatment, my lady. If you’d prefer, I’ll ask you father to call for your maid to help you.”
Without understanding what was happening, Nora was anxious and ashamed. She didn’t want anyone who cared about her in the room right now. She shook her head. “I’ll do it.”
“Very good.” He turned and picked up his bags—two of them now—and went to her dressing table.
Nora stood and removed her drawers. Sliding back between the covers made her think of lying with William—the only time in her life she’d been naked in bed—and she closed her eyes until the memory stepped back to its place.
The doctor turned from his organising and smiled when he saw that she’d complied. He stepped to the bed and folded the covers back, from the foot up, until her legs were bare from the midpoint of her thighs down. Then he washed his hands in the washbowl Kate had brought in before his earlier visit, and turned back to the array he’d laid out on her dressing table. He picked up a small amber bottle and turned it onto his right hand, rubbing some of its contents onto his fingers. The strong smell of rosewood filled the room.
While she watched, nervous and confused, he came to the side of the bed and slid his oiled fingers under the covers.
Nora jumped away, scrambling up the headboard. “What are you doing?”
“I’m treating you, my lady. You must relax. Lie down, please.”
“I don’t—I don’t want you to.”
“You don’t understand, and that’s to be expected. But I’m a medical doctor, Lady Nora. You must trust me. Your father does.”
She looked to the closed door. There was no rescue or escape forthcoming. “What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m going to help you get well.”
“I’m not ill.”
His smile was like an Old Masters portrait of condescension. “You are not qualified to make that diagnosis, Lady Nora. I am, and I say you are quite ill. Now. Please lie down, or I shall have to call your father in.”
She’d get no help from the man who’d brought this on her. Without another choice, Nora lay back down.
Dr. Stanhope slid his hand under the cover again. He pushed her thighs apart, and then his fingers were on her, where only William had touched her.
“Please stop.”
The doctor ignored her. He rubbed all over, spreading the oil through her folds, over that little node William had shown her—the clitoris—that had opened the world of her body to her. She’d touched herself there since, but not often. It made her ache with longing to feel those feelings without him.
This stranger touching her there now was the worst thing she’d ever experienced.
Then he put his fingers inside her, and that was worse.
He gave her a sharp look as he pushed in, unimpeded. Nora understood what he’d expected to find, and she knew her father would know everything soon. She tried to send a steady, unafraid look back as the doctor probed around inside her, but she was too horrified and frightened, and tears obscured her sight.
“Please stop. Please,” she said again, and was again ignored. Her stomach churned angrily. If she’d eaten anything since the first course at Lady Francine’s dinner, she’d have vomited on the doctor by now.
Then he stopped, and turned away, holding his right hand up. At the dressing table he picked up a contraption and brought it to the bed. He unplugged her bedside lamp and plugged his device in. It began to hum loudly, like an engine.
When he slid it over his right hand, Nora understood. She slammed her legs closed and sat up. “No! No, no, no!”
The doctor’s patience had waned. He stood there with his contraption vibrating on his hand, and he scowled at her. “Lady Nora. A young woman in control of her faculties would recognise that she is ill and wish to get well. I am here for that sole purpose: to make you well. Please let me do my work. Lie down and open your legs.”
She heard the threat in his words. If she wasn’t in control of her faculties, then she was insane. He was telling her the consequences of her refusal. Unless she was willing to see the inside of Bedlam, she would have to lie back down and try to be a mannequin.
“CHRISTOPHER, NO!” As her father’s angry shout filtered through the wall, the door to Nora’s room flew open, and her brother charged in. He was flushed and furious.
“Get out, Stanhope. Now. Take your outmoded, obscene ‘treatment’ and beat hell out of this house.”
“My lord, I’m here at your father’s—“ his words cut off when Christopher grabbed him by the collar and threw him away from the bed. The cord of his device went taut and yanked on his hand. It pulled the doctor over as he struggled to keep his feet, and he landed on his knees with a shout and a thud. His pince-nez flew off his nose.
“CHRISTOPHER!” His father shouted again, now in the room. He saw Nora, sitting on the bed in nothing but her disordered vest, her legs bare, now exposed all the way to her hips, and his face took on a pallor like death. He turned away. Aunt Martha stood in the doorway, her hand on her chest.
Nora burst into horrified, overwhelmed, distraught sobs.
Her brother yanked the duvet over her, then grabbed her into his arms and held her, stroking her hair. “I’m sorry, Nono. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know they’d do this. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”
Her brother had broken her heart, but now he’d saved her. Only he was with her now. She had no one but him. So she forgave him. She held onto him as tightly as she could and sobbed.