LITMIR.BIZ

      Jane looked with distaste and a cringing fear at the chair Jacob Atkins would have her bend over so he could beat her with the thin cane which he was casually slapping against his booted right leg. His one remaining eye held a strange pinprick of light that Jane, with a sinking heart, knew boded ill for her. It would not be the first time she had felt the sting of that cane. Red welts usually criss-crossed her back for days following a whipping. He seemed to take special delight in marking her bare flesh.

      ‘Please do not use that on me.’ Her voice quavered. ‘I have done nothing so terrible that deserves a beating.’

      ‘It is a punishment you will receive, Jane, and as usual you are being impertinent.’

      Jane hesitated, then, her terror bolstering her courage, though she was sadly aware that it wouldn’t make any difference to what was about to happen, she raised her head bravely. ‘There is nothing wrong with trying to defend myself. These—these punishments have to stop,’ she said haltingly. ‘I am not one of your daughters. I will not be beaten into submission.’

      Jane watched with dreadful, terror-filled fascination as his face turned a dangerous crimson; the colour of it appeared to leak into his eye. She held his gaze with something like defiance, her proud nature rebelling against compliance to this man. She just hoped he wouldn’t notice how violently she trembled, the fear instilling uncertainty of what form of punishment he’d use on her if she openly defied him. While her lovely face seemed almost without expression, her eyes betrayed her inner fear as she stared back at him.

      When he moved to stand directly in front of her, her heart sank and her blood ran cold when he raised his hand and she felt his fingers brush her neck. On a gasp she struck at his hand, only to find her own as quickly imprisoned. He seized a handful of her long, thick hair, pulling her head back with spiteful force.

      ‘Oh, no, Jane. You have much to learn,’ he hissed, his mouth close to her ear. ‘If I want to touch you, touch you I shall.’

      She stood rigid and silent, his touch making her skin crawl. A violent shivering shook her from head to foot when he released her hair and his grip tightened around her neck with ever-increasing brutality. With helpless fury she looked into his eye.

      Jacob gave a slow, satisfied smile. How he craved to run his fingers over the white skin beneath the dress of this girl while she trembled before him, to look on her nakedness and see her proud, complacent smile turn into a grimace of terror as she cried and pleaded for mercy. Just as suddenly as he had touched her he pulled himself together. The smile faded from his face and his hand released her.

      ‘How dare you question my authority, Jane, my judgement. I would advise you to obey me immediately or go to your room until I give you permission to leave it. I have to go out and will not be back until tomorrow afternoon, at which time we shall continue this discussion and I will consider the punishment you deserve.’

      ‘By all means lock me in my room,’ she uttered tremulously. ‘I would rather that than be beaten by you for merely riding out alone. I am nineteen years old and what I have done does not deserve a thrashing.’

      Jacob watched her closely. As she stood before him, he felt a certain satisfaction in knowing how much she feared him—hated him. She was quite magnificent as she held her head high and her eyes shone with bravely held tears. But she had defied him and he would not have it. He would make a show of his authority. The girl, his late sister’s stepdaughter, was full grown, a strong and healthy girl with too much pride, and he would not rest until he had thrashed that pride out of her.

      Jane Lucas was a beauty. Her sun-warmed flesh and peach-coloured lips and her warm dark eyes were accentuated by the midnight blackness of her hair.

      ‘Do not think you can escape, Jane. Do you remember what happened the last time you ran away from me?’ He laughed, delighting in the horror that suddenly appeared in her eyes, for she had tried to escape him—twice—and each time he had found her and brought her back. Her punishment had been severe, and she had been kept in her room until she was fit to be seen. ‘You will take your punishment,’ he said, smacking the palm of his hand with the cane. ‘I promise you that.’

      He stood directly before her, and Jane could clearly see the huge bulge that filled the front of his breeches. He was breathing rapidly, his face suffused with colour. A horror so great, so overwhelming, a thought so preposterous, so disgusting, was running through her mind like quicksilver. Surely he would not subject her to … Dear God, no, but then … Yes. Jacob Atkins was perverted and he could and he would if he had his way.

      At fifteen years old when she had come to live in his house, she had been wise enough to recognise that he enjoyed the spectacle of degrading a gently nurtured girl even more than he would enjoy the physical act of ravishing her. Now, one glance at his flushed features laid bare the lascivious nature of his private thoughts, and the humiliation that those thoughts were directed at her was too dreadful to contemplate, but they told her that he intended the second pleasure to follow the first.

      All their lives his daughters had suffered pain and fear at his hands. They had always been afraid of him, even when their mother had been alive and she had done her best to interpose between her rage-filled husband and cowering children. Now grown women, they were still meek and obedient and punished for the slightest transgression. The youngest, Elizabeth seventeen and Anne a year older, were vulnerable and weak, whereas Hester could withstand his indifference, his cruelty, for, apart from the beatings, which seemed to give him some perverse pleasure, he barely infringed on their daily lives.

      He had made them what they were. They were fed and clothed and slept in warm beds, but they were nervous and terrified of their own shadows, always looking over their shoulders to see if their father was watching them. Nobody could stand against Jacob Atkins—nobody—not even Jane. But somehow, some time, she would make good her escape. She would leave his house for ever and go back to …

      There was a place she knew where time

Скачать книгу