Tight Laced (11 page)

They’d forced sedatives on her. In and out of a dream state she’d passed. And what of the charming, rakish duke? Was he actually now wed to Sarah Jane? The poor man. Had she unwittingly led him to his downfall? He must loathe her now.

She breathed the outside air once more, taking it into her lungs deeply, and in so-doing, rekindled her tingle. Never had she had such a limbic response to a man. His smell, the dragon essence of him. The way he’d touched her and brought her to climax as if his mind and hers shared a body.

She straightened, and listened for the nurse’s return. Hearing nothing, Lacy worked her fingers under the cotton asylum shift to the stubble of hair that was just re-sprouting. She stroked her mound with increasing urgency, and then slipped a finger just inside – her nubbin engorged quickly. She closed her eyes and pictured the duke’s erect cock, its firm girth, and the glorious taste of his nectar.

She was close, so very close, and she could not contain the words that escaped: “Yes, Darlington, take me. Take me now!”

Lacy’s knees buckled, and she crumpled to the cold floor in an ecstatic heap, coming hard. Her ears rang and she could hear her own breath. Her panting. Her heartbeat.

That was the thing about her bursts of desire – she failed to consider the consequences in the midst of her body’s heat and rapture. Unsurprisingly, the nurse returned to find Lacy on the floor, her shift pulled up exposing her still-throbbing, though thoroughly satisfied, fruitful vine.

Mathilde, Adelaide and Delphinium greeted the coach as it came to a halt in front of the Blantyre Highmeadow estate. Darlington’s sisters looked nervous, clearly marked by forced smiles as he helped Sarah Jane out of the carriage.

They were lined up according to age and rank, Darlington’s eldest sister – in one of her gowns that hid the latest bun in the oven – outstretched her hand first. “Welcome, Lady Sarah Jane,” she managed through pursed lips. “I am Mathilde.”

Sarah Jane flung herself into a hasty curtsy and then tripped as she took the Duchess’s hand, nearly yanking her to the rough ground.

Darlington pulled the ladies to rights, and his middle sister, Adelaide (anxious, and eager to set things right), interrupted. “Have you spoken with the foreman? It’s a disaster, Darlington. An utter and complete disaster.”

“Are you also my new sister?” said Sarah Jane, loudly.

Adelaide crunched her forehead in confusion. The girl was the peacemaker in the family, and after their parents retired from society (they were both infirm and addled, mostly confined to the upper floors), Addie had taken on the role of conduit. “I am Adelaide, and you may address me thus.”

Darlington felt the need to take over the line of questioning before chaos ensued. “Dear Addie, I will go at once. And then, I’m afraid I must get word of Sarah Jane’s sister. She was the victim of an absolute disastrous misunderstanding, and her good name is at stake.”

Sarah Jane bounced on her toes, “Mum was mad as hops when Lacy rode off with the duke, though Roland and me told her, she just has a way with horses. Oh dear, I really need to visit the loo. Can one of you kind ladies direct me?”

“Roland?” asked Adelaide. “Who is Roland?”

“Yes m’lady?” intoned the coachman from his position at the helm.

Sarah Jane, still bouncing, said, “Mama gave Darlington and me him as a gift! A proper coachman, he is.”

Now the last of the duke’s sisters, his twin, spoke up. “Why, you can’t give someone as a gift, silly girl. Come, let me take you into the house so you can, um, powder your nose. I’m Delphi. Short for Delphinium.”

His twin sister had been born a day before him on New Year’s eve, and always relished the fact that she would always be a year ahead of him in birth, though he soon towered over her.

She was stunted and slender – nearly child-sized – and had a propensity for skin-tight clothing in an era of bustles and crinolines, accentuating her diminutive physique.

Sarah Jane must have thought her far younger than she was, for she reached for Delphi’s outstretched hand, and the two scampered off toward the ducal estate’s main entrance. Darlington could make out Sarah Jane’s raspy voice before it thankfully faded from his aural reference. “Delphinium! You’re like my very own china doll come to life! Though your name makes me anxious, for I’m sensitive to Delphiniums. Like all flowers, really, I get the worst rash …”

Adelaide and Mathilde watched his bride sashay off, and Darlington dismissed Roland, directing him to the stable. His sisters looked daggers at him.

“What?” he said.

“How did this come about?” said Mathilde.

“Never mind. It’s temporary. I’ll figure something out.”

“It’s the lien, yes?” said Adelaide.

“The widow took out her claws. Now, tell me, is it as bad as they say?”

“Worse,” said Mathilde.

“How many dead?”

“Last count, 205,” said Addie. “Some were but children.”

Darlington closed his eyes, breathed in, and felt the weight of all of it collapse his spirit. A monumental disaster, and people were looking at him to fix it. Oh, the humanity!

He looked toward the receding carriage. He turned to his sister, who kept track of all domestic matters. “Addie, is my bay stallion back from the paddock?”

“Should have been brought back yesterday. The ploughman has been making the swing rig ready for those acres.”

“Good ‘nuf. I’ll ride off to the mine and assess the damage. If you kind sisters could make some baskets ready for the families?”

“Already done, Darlington,” said Mathilde.

“And your bride?” queried his eldest sister.

“Yes, well, see that she gets her own maid - she’s accustomed to it, the wretched girl probably cannot find the leg holes in her own bloomers.”

Mathilde let out a furtive giggle. Darlington could always make her laugh in spite of herself.

With that, the duke set off on his next mission. One he dreaded most profoundly, but hoped he might be done with in short order, for his heart and his mind were fully occupied with thoughts of Lacilia – where she might be, and what would become of her.

The day after the disaster, all the men in the northern part of the colliery had left their work and headed for #2 pit, only to be overcome by chokedamp before reaching safety. Ventilation continued until later in the week, when the debris at the foot of #3 shaft could be cleared. It wasn’t until Sunday that the first bodies were brought up.

~ Reports from the Blantyre Mining Disaster of 1977

I
F DARLINGTON HAD
been troubled before assessing the damage, after witnessing the teems of widows and fatherless children lining the streets of Blantyre, he was now profoundly somber. Grief-stricken, and deeply mournful. Why had it happened? He’d been on the verge of using the borrowed money to fortify the shafts, but, as the adage went, he was a day late and a pound short.

He found his foreman, Griggs, picking through rubble. Bent in half, practically, with darkly circled eyes. His hands blackened, streaks of ebony trailed down his cheeks, where surely fits of weeping had marked his face with prison-like bars.

“What now?” he asked the devastated man.

“They look to me as their boss. Their protector. And now, all trust is gone. I have babies with no food. Women about to give birth with no husbands by their sides. Tell me now, Duke. Tell me what to tell them when they come begging for answers.”

Darlington’s heart was as heavy as the cars of coal stranded beside the collapsed mine. “I swear that I will not let one child go hungry. Nor will any widow want for a roof over her head. My sisters are preparing baskets for the needy, and I shall use my loan from the good Earl of Highcastle, God rest his soul, to compensate the families for their loss.”

Griggs nodded, but Darlington knew the foreman did not believe a word of it. The scope, the scale of this disaster, was beyond any the continent had suffered. The Queen herself would have a difficult time finding the fortune that would make this right.

Darlington produced a seven-guinea note then from his satchel. “This will be a start. I promise that there will be more upon my return.”

“Your return, Your Grace?”

“Griggs, there is another disaster. One very personal to me, and I must attend to it immediately.”

The foreman gave Darlington a querulous look. “What could possibly be more urgent than the matter at hand?”

But Darlington was already mounted, and riding away from the site. Poisonous steam from the pits swirling in the air behind him.

Lacy’s hands were bound once more, and now she wore a device similar to the chastity belts of yore. The bitter nurse delighted in these new restraints, and felt compelled to offer sanctimony whenever she attended to Lacy’s bedside.

“Cursed girl,” she scolded now, as she sponged Lacilia down with filthy wash water. “Can’t keep your hands away from God’s own pastures? Well then, perhaps after you go under the knife, you’ll find more charitable things to do with your fingers.”

Lacy had ignored the woman, for the most part, but her rancor had been building, and today (had it been two days? Three?) she finally let loose, offering the nurse a dose of what her father had always called “The rage of Lacy.”

“What is so awful about pleasure? Perhaps you have had only clumsy lovers. Or, perhaps none at all. That might explain your disdain for human feeling.”

The nurse lowered her weasely head and seared her beady eyes into those of her captive. “I should strike you for your blasphemy right here and now. You high-and-mighty types believe yourselves to be superior to all. Well I have news—”

The nurse was interrupted by the doctor, who now approached the bed. “Miss Bloomsbury,” he said, his voice sounding almost serpent-like. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“How am I feeling? Like a prisoner. How might you expect me to be feeling?”

“Leave us,” the doctor said, tersely, addressing the nurse who then, huffily, took her leave.

The doctor leaned over the bed and closed the gap between himself and her face slowly. Deliberately. “You are quite a study, Lady Lacilia. Quite a study.”

She could smell something fowl on his breath. A bad tooth, perhaps. Something rotting in his head. She turned her face away from him. Something that she still had the power to do.