The Wedding Night Affair--An Historical Mystery L.C. Sharp (i read books .TXT) 📖

did not need Amelia’s gasp to know her back was worse than her front. “You should not be doing this. I’m sure of it.” When Ash had asked his sister to record the marks, he might not have been fully aware of what Godfrey had done.

Juliana would record the horror for herself, write every detail down. Ash would have to see it, but she would spare Amelia the worst.

“I help Ash all the time,” Amelia said carelessly, but Juliana heard the strain in her voice.

“I will write down what he did.”

“Yes. If you do that, we can witness it. Not your account, but that this is your hand and you wrote it.”

“Is that common in a case like this?”

“There is no case like this. I do not know of any. But I have seen cases where husbands have abused wives to the point of death.”

Sorrow and relief filled Juliana. Sorrow for the women who had suffered, relief that she was not alone. “Have you finished your sketch?”

A soft sigh. “Yes. Shall I help you wash your hair?”

“I would appreciate that.”

Juliana could move, she could feel and she was alive. That was all she could think of for now. Leaning forward, she let Amelia pour jugfuls of water over her hair. She watched pink water cascade around her. Only then did she shed a few tears. Nobody would know about them. They ran away with the bloody water.

And they did no good at all.

Chapter Ten

Juliana ate and slept again. If asked what she had eaten, she would say she had no idea. When Amelia came to bed, she merely grunted a greeting, but she slept some more. Exhaustion had finally set in.

Halfway through the night Juliana woke. Not a dream, but the sound of a church clock striking the hour. Three o’clock. Far too early.

But comforting, after the dream she’d just had. She was standing on the scaffold at Tyburn. A vast crowd jeered and laughed at her. Some threw things. Then she felt the rope tighten around her neck as the executioner guided her to the trap door. There was no escape. She was going to die.

Her breath stopped, her heart beat so fast she couldn’t breathe. But she knew where she was now, and her bed companion was a woman who’d become her friend in the short time she’d known her. Her first female friend.

She breathed deeply, feeling her heart settle to a more normal rate. But she doubted that she’d sleep. How could she risk that dream again?

As if she knew, deep down, that Juliana was in distress, Amelia shifted in the bed and touched Juliana’s bare foot with her own. Comfort warmed her. Somebody cared, someone who wasn’t paid to do it.

Before she knew it, she fell back into a deep sleep, and this time she didn’t dream.

She woke to daylight. After the turmoil of yesterday this tranquil room, with only faint sounds coming from outside, seemed unreal. The church bell chimed. She counted eight. Half the world—her half—would still be abed, exhausted after a night of balls and revelry. And, no doubt, gossip.

Juliana had never liked gossip. Now it would all be about her.

She was alone in the bed, but a dent on the pillow on the other side reminded her that she’d shared the bed. Although instituted for propriety, or so Ash had claimed, the presence of someone else stopped her brooding. Juliana was wont to brood.

Was Juliana denying Amelia the peace of her bedchamber? Such privacy seemed like a dream. Normally she was rarely alone. From servants to petitioners, people who wanted her to talk to her father, or buy something, or dedicate a piece of music or a poem to her, to guests who thought her room was as open as all the other rooms in the house, she was rarely alone. Not truly alone, like this.

She liked it. If she got out of this mess alive, she would ensure she had her own space. How she would do it she had no idea. The fear shading her soul would not stop her from claiming what she could from the rest of her life, however long that turned out to be.

Flinging back the covers, Juliana sat on the edge of the bed, giving herself a few minutes before she slid her feet to the floor and got up. Her injuries hurt, worse than yesterday if truth be told, but they would not get the better of her. She rolled her shoulders to ease some of the stiffness.

Her clothes from yesterday were gone. All she had was her shift and her stays, which lay over the back of the chair by the fire. Since her shift was positively indecent, unless she wrapped herself in the patchwork bedcover she had just tossed aside, she would have to stay where she was. And this house was unlike any other she’d ever stayed in.

Nil desperandum.

The door opened.

“Ah, you’re up. Good.” As if this was a normal day in a normal life, Amelia gave her a sunny smile. She dropped a pile of clothes on the chair by the unlit fire. “I will lend you what you need.”

“Good morning,” Juliana said faintly.

“Do you need help dressing?”

Juliana waved vaguely in the direction of the stays. She had never dressed herself.

“There’s a trick to doing them up by yourself,” Amelia chirped, picking up the offending object. “These are beautiful stays. Beautifully made, and the work so fine! Now turn around...”

Half an hour later, a bewildered Juliana had learned how to fasten her own stays and dress herself. She had never done such a thing before in her life, but the knowledge that she could make herself decent without anyone’s help bolstered her spirits.

“Ash and I think you would do better if you joined the rest of us for breakfast. It’s a chaotic meal, because we let the servants stock the dishes and then go downstairs for their own meal, but we like it that way.” Amelia stood back, examining