The Scandalous Suffragette Read online

  ‘What happened?’ he demanded. ‘Are you hurt?’

  Her eyes were huge in her face. ‘I’m not hurt. It was extraordinary. My trunk fell through the floorboards. It was a heavy one, you see. I opened the lid and it just disappeared.’

  Adam swore.

  ‘There must be a rotten floorboard.’ He peered over the edge of the hole into the abyss below. ‘I can’t see the trunk. It must have gone straight down to the floor below.’

  ‘What’s underneath this bedroom?’ she asked.

  ‘The hall. Hopefully the trunk hasn’t caused too much damage.’ He brushed off his hands as he got up. ‘I’ll have to go and have a look downstairs.’

  He turned back to Violet. ‘Are you sure you’re all right...?’ The question died on his lips.

  ‘Good Lord,’ Adam said.

  In a single glance, he took her in from head to toe as she stood there.

  Her chestnut hair was now only half-piled on her head. Loose, it fell to her bare shoulder with more wave and curl than he’d anticipated. Her ice-cream-smooth wedding dress was gone now, leaving only the ruffled lace of a camisole, edging the creamy mounds of her breasts, still lifting and falling from the shock.

  His gaze travelled down. Her stiff busked corset, pushing up those full breasts, moulded her waist into a tiny column, so small he could have spanned it in his hands. Beneath the corset were a pair of lacy knickers, their ruffled edge coming to the middle of her thigh.

  And below it, there was the item that had made him step back.

  ‘What is that you’re wearing?’ he asked hoarsely.

  ‘Oh! These are called knickers.’ Violet indicated the frilly shorts. ‘Camisole knickers. I find them so much more comfortable than long pantaloons. They’re quite the fashion.’

  Adam coughed. He’d never seen such a ravishing pair of drawers, if they could be called that. They were little more than lace. ‘It’s not the...ah...knickers.’

  He pointed at what was tied inches above her knee.

  Green, Purple. White. Around her perfectly formed, stockinged leg was a striped suffragette garter.

  Violet looked down and laughed aloud, the wholehearted, unexpected laugh he’d begun to appreciate so much. ‘I wanted to wear something to remind me of the Cause as I went down the aisle.’

  He swallowed hard. Her legs were stupendous. He could hardly stop staring at them. ‘Most brides wear something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. That’s the old rhyme, I believe.’

  ‘Something green, purple and white means more to me,’ she explained. ‘There’s a meaning to the colours. Purple for loyalty and dignity, white for purity and green for hope.’

  He managed to drag his eyes away from the garter and up to her face. ‘So you’re a suffragette through and through.’

  She laughed again. ‘I suppose I am. Perhaps it reminds you of how you came to propose to me. When we danced together at the ball, I had my suffrage banners hidden under my petticoats.’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’ He hadn’t dwelt on it too much, where she had hidden those silken banners. But now...

  He seized a white dressing gown that lay on the bed.

  ‘Here.’ Swiftly he passed the filmy cotton to her. ‘Put that on. For your safety, you’d better wait in my bedroom while I go and check the damage.’

  As fast as he could, Adam left the room.

  * * *

  In Adam’s side of the bedroom, Violet undressed.

  Rapidly, she slipped off her shoes, removed the garter and unrolled her silk stockings. Making a tent of her nightdress, she removed her corset, leaving her camisole and knickers underneath. Over the nightdress, she tied the peignoir.

  Her heart pounded, but she knew it wasn’t merely from the shock of her trunk falling through the floorboards.

  It was Adam.

  His expression when he’d spotted her striped garter had been one of incredulity, then it had changed to something else, something more.

  Desire.

  She’d recognised it the instant he felt it.

  Because at that moment, she’d felt it, too.

  A strong, pulsing cord had formed between them, so strong it had almost dragged her into his arms. She’d managed to answer his questions, to laugh, all the while sensing that desire alive between them.

  At his washstand, she poured water from the pitcher into the bowl and splashed it on her cheeks. Wiping the droplets away on a towel revealed that she was covered in dust. A few more splashes and the dust was gone, but not the heat in her cheeks.

  It was the second time she’d needed to cool herself with water after an encounter with Adam.

  To her surprise, she hadn’t been embarrassed to stand in front of him in her undergarments. Her attire was no disgrace. She despised prudishness. If she had been at the swimming baths, she might have worn something similar. Yet the effect on him...

  She was shuddering now, as more than the shock set in. Quickly, she returned to her bedroom, avoided the broken floor and seized the tin of violet creams from under her pillow. Back in Adam’s side of the room she ate one, then another. The sweetness on her tongue restored her.

  ‘The damage doesn’t appear to be permanent.’

  Violet dropped the tin on a table near the bed and spun around to see Adam coming through the connecting doors. He held a lamp in his hand.

  ‘I’ve taken a look upstairs and down, as best as I can tonight,’ he went on, as he laid the lamp on to a table by the fireplace. ‘The damage can be contained. The trunk went straight down, as I thought. It looks worse than it is, but I think it can be fixed, and there’s no destruction to the floor of the hall. That stone tile is ancient, but it took the weight.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Violet said. Her trunk had damaged his home. She knew how much he cherished it.

  ‘It’s not your fault. There have been some years of neglect, I told you that. It appears to be only one floorboard that’s the issue, as far as I can make out. I’ll get it mended, but the manor needs a complete survey.’ He shook his head. ‘It was lucky you weren’t hurt. I’d never have forgiven myself.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, either,’ she reminded him.

  ‘All the same, it’s my responsibility. You ought not to use that side of the bedroom, to be on the safe side.’ Adam ran his hand through his hair. ‘You can sleep in my bed tonight.’

  Violet drew in her breath. ‘With you?’

  He shook his head. ‘I didn’t mean that. I’ll find somewhere else to sleep.’

  Alarm rippled through her. ‘But there’s no one else here at the manor.’ Pulling the peignoir closer, she moved towards him. ‘Please don’t go. Not tonight.’

  His head jerked back. ‘What are you saying, Violet?’

  ‘I don’t want to be alone after what’s happened. I’ve never spent a night at Beauley Manor before.’ She bit her lip. To her embarrassment, it almost quivered. She refused to let Adam see that fatigue and fright were eroding her usual courage. ‘You don’t need to find another room. We can both sleep here in your bed.’

  A muscle worked in his cheek. ‘There’s little likelihood of any more furniture falling through the floor. It was just the one floorboard—at least, I hope so.’

  Violet swallowed hard. ‘I’d feel better if you were near. I understand what you said at dinner. But when we made our terms, you said we could be friends. And after all, no matter what happens in the future, tonight is our wedding night.’

  He pushed back his hair from his forehead. ‘You want us to share a bed.’

  ‘To sleep,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m not suggesting...an entanglement.’

  Adam gazed at her for a long moment, inscrutable.

  ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘Only for tonight.’

  Violet lay in the darkness. Beside her she could hear Adam�
�s slow breathing. He had finally fallen asleep. She’d heard the moment. His breathing had changed, deepened. His body, some distance from hers, had become still.

  It was strangely intimate. She had never slept with anyone before, let alone a man. Yet it had seemed so natural, the way they had pulled back the covers, taken one side each. He’d blown out the candle then and they lay there in silence. But not alone.

  Startling her now, he rolled on to his back. She could make out the shape of his strong profile, his chin and neck, and his body beneath the covers.

  She hoped she hadn’t been unfair, asking for his company. It was most unlike her, but she had been perilously close to tears. She hadn’t wanted to be left alone in the huge, empty manor. Not without him near.

  Did you want me to kiss you?

  As sleep began to take her, the answer to Adam’s question floated into her consciousness. She knew the answer now. It was the same one she had given to the question in the lilac letter.

  Yes.

  * * *

  Adam awoke. Normally, in the morning, his eyes went to the curtains, to see the daylight coming in. Now he stared at the woman who lay beside him.

  Violet.

  His wife.

  She was still asleep. Her hair, now completely loose, was curled around her face and shoulders, like a veil. Her lashes were gold tipped, he noted, resting on her pink cheeks. Her mouth was slightly opened, her soft breathing a whisper on the pillows.

  He was drawn to her, lying peacefully beside him. Her skin was soft and smooth. He’d thought her merely pretty, not beautiful, when they first met, but now he saw she had a beauty and a secret vulnerability, while her pugnacious chin gave her strength and her bow-shaped mouth its character.

  His body stirred.

  He redirected his attention to the window. Daylight edged the curtains. The velvet was so thin that the golden morning light formed a patchwork of light and shade on the fabric. In spite of the dilapidation, it, too, had its own beauty.

  She was sleeping soundly now on a thin feather pillow, probably a far cry from the luxurious bedding she was used to. He wondered idly what her parents’ home in Manchester was like. Enormous, he imagined, with every modern convenience, completely fashionable and up to date. Like her frilly knickers. And as for that garter in the suffragette colours—it had almost undone him.

  He stifled a laugh that became a groan. There had been a spark of passion in her eyes that he imagined she barely knew she possessed. One night with her in his bed was all he could manage. After the disaster of the worn floorboards that had sent her trunk hurtling through the floor, he hadn’t been able to leave her all alone, as she stood there in her nightgown. She’d been frightened, he’d sensed, even though she’d tried to hide it. There she was, in an unknown house, with a man who was practically a stranger, all for the sake of her parents’ health and happiness, and for a Cause she believed in. As she’d stood there he’d witnessed, behind the raised chin, the same sensitive nature he’d spotted at the ball when she’d been a wallflower, before he asked her to dance. She touched him, with that combination of valour and vulnerability.

  The night before, at dinner, she’d called herself naïve. She was. It was no crime. She had a natural curiosity for life. It struck him anew how limited the opportunities were for women, regardless of wealth or status.

  He glanced over at her again, drew back.

  Her blue eyes were open. She was awake.

  They stared at each other.

  ‘Have you slept well?’ he asked eventually, as his body roared into life. With a will of iron, he clamped it down.

  ‘Very well, thank you,’ she replied.

  ‘Good. Perhaps you would care for some breakfast in the hall. I’m afraid there aren’t any staff to bring it up to you here.’ If he could ever get out of the damned bed.

  She raised herself on one elbow, her long hair falling over the bodice of her white nightgown. ‘There’s no need. It’s my turn. I can serve breakfast.’

  To Adam’s amazement Violet jumped out of bed and retrieved a tin of chocolates.

  She laughed.

  ‘Would you care for a violet cream?’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown

  Full quire, and morning driv’n her plow of pearl

  Far furrowing into light...’

  —Alfred, Lord Tennyson: ‘Love and Duty’ (1842)

  ‘Good morning, Violet.’

  ‘Good morning, Jane.’ Her younger sister-in-law gave a warm smile.

  ‘Good morning, Violet.’

  ‘Good morning, Arabella.’ Her elder sister-in-law gave a haughty nod.

  Violet stopped at her mother-in-law’s empty chair at the long table in the hall.

  ‘Mama is unwell,’ Arabella answered Violet’s unspoken question. ‘She is having breakfast in bed.’

  Breakfast in bed.

  Violet took her own place at the long table and reached for some toast from the silver rack and the pot of marmalade.

  Only a few weeks had passed, but it seemed an age since she and Adam had shared violet creams in bed for their breakfast after spending their wedding night together in his room. Her night in his bed hadn’t been repeated. The next day, after the floor surrounding the area that had fallen through had been checked and boarded over, Adam had deemed it safe for her to return to her own bedroom. It was as safe as any other part of the first floor of Beauley, he’d said, so firmly she hadn’t dared argue with him.

  A full survey of the state of the manor was now underway. The entire building was being assessed, from attic to cellar, and the results would soon be known.

  Meanwhile, the connecting doors between them had been shut tight.

  Violet was shocked by how much she missed him. They had only shared a bed together that first night, but she now found it difficult to sleep alone. Each night, as she undressed, washed in a copper tub by the fireplace and brushed her hair in front of the mirror, she would hear him moving about in the next room before he went to bed. Each night, she would gaze at the connecting doors and wonder what he was doing. Whether the doors were locked any more, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t dare try the handle. Once or twice she approached the closed doors, tempted to tap, or lay her cheek against the wood. Yet so far, she hadn’t given in to such temptation.

  Her awareness of Adam beyond the door continued once she was in her bed. She would read a little, but she found it hard to concentrate. When she blew out the lamp and lay against the pillows, she would imagine him lying in the next room. She knew now the way he fell asleep, the way he slept, turned, rolled. On their wedding night, she’d fallen asleep beside him into a slumber so deep, so refreshing, that all sleep since had been disturbed.

  What must it be like, then, to sleep in his arms?

  Violet spread her toast with the orange marmalade.

  In the mornings, she often didn’t see him. Violet was up promptly for breakfast in the hall by nine o’clock, but Adam was often long gone, out on the estate with the workers. He worked harder than anyone else and was held in great esteem by the estate workers.

  She’d caught sight of him that morning, however. She’d heard him moving about, later than usual. She’d knocked and asked if he had any letters he wanted her to post. He’d opened the door with one hand, bare-chested.

  ‘Gatekeeper, butler and field hand,’ he’d said drily, as with the other hand he thrust a loose cotton shirt over his broad chest.

  She bit into her toast.

  ‘Violet! Would you care for coffee?’ Arabella sounded exasperated.

  Violet dropped her toast. ‘I’m sorry?’

  She hadn’t meant to annoy Arabella.

  Jane giggled good-naturedly. ‘Are you quite well this morning, Violet?’

  Arabella brandished the silver coffee p
ot. ‘I hope you are not coming down with the same flu as Mama,’ she said severely.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Violet. ‘I am quite well. Very well.’

  She felt a flush rise to her cheeks. She hoped her sisters-in-law wouldn’t notice.

  Her relations with Jane were very good now. They had become friends. But Arabella remained a closed book.

  Book was an accurate description, Violet mused. Arabella read constantly, and not merely novels, but books of law, history and philosophy. Violet liked to read, too. She would have enjoyed discussing their reading with Arabella. But Arabella remained haughty. Or perhaps she was simply reserved, as Adam sometimes was. He preferred to remain in control in his life, Violet had noticed. Only Jane was bubbly and uninhibited.

  ‘I do hope Mama will be better by the garden party on Saturday,’ worried Jane.

  Violet sipped her coffee. They had been preparing for the garden party for weeks and she was looking forward to it.

  ‘Your mama will be sorry to miss the garden party,’ Violet said to Jane. She’d formed a cordial relationship with her mother-in-law and was sorry to hear she was ill.

  ‘She won’t, greatly,’ Jane confessed. ‘Mama has to give a speech to open it for everyone. She doesn’t like having to do so.’

  ‘I will look in on her later,’ said Arabella.

  Jane passed the toast rack. ‘What are you doing this morning, Violet?’

  She glanced out the arched window. The sun blazed on to the lawn. It was the most glorious day. Hopefully, it would stay that way and any rain would hold off for the garden party. ‘I’m planning a walk into the village. I have some letters to post.’

  ‘Are they suffragette letters?’ Jane asked eagerly.

  ‘Some of them.’

  It was a relief to no longer have to hide her dedication to the Cause—except, of course, for her membership of the lilac-letter group, as she now called them. She’d received one more letter so far, acknowledging her change of name and address, and advising her that activities were imminent.

  In addition to her membership of the lilac-letter group, Violet had also joined the Women’s Social and Political Union led by the famed Mrs Pankhurst. She received their pamphlets and correspondence, as well as other women’s journals and magazines that supported the Cause, sometimes reading items of note aloud to Jane, who was most enthusiastic. As for Arabella, she could not tell if her elder sister-in-law had much interest in the suffragettes. When they were together in the solar, she always held a book in front of her, though sometimes, when Violet told Jane about the rallies and meetings and other exploits, she noticed that Arabella rarely turned the pages.