Tight Laced Read online

  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

  IF 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 spong
ed 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.

  “Don’t be nasty, now. I’m here to alleviate your hysteria. You should be contrite! Grateful!”

  Lacy, her head still turned to the side, spoke into damp air. “Grateful? Sir, you bind me, threaten mutilation, and call me mad, and you think that I should show gratitude?”

  “With an organ the size of yours, I can see how you might feel as a man would in this circumstance. There is much to learn from your particular confirmation, and I am here to let you know that I have obtained some equipment by which to study it more closely.”

  “My so-called organ is no bigger or smaller than any other on a female body. Only, I engage with its stimulation more frequently. You do not need calipers or any other piece of equipment to ascertain its limits.”

  The doctor cleared his throat, as if he hadn’t heard a word she said, and went right on with his agenda. He ripped the thin sheet from her body, and unlocked the iron bloomers that covered her delicate folds. “Now then, it’s been at least a day since last you’ve engaged in self-pollution. I must take some cursory measurements.”

  Lacy grit her teeth as the doctor probed her with his cadre of sharp, cold instruments. There was a pinch and another pinch. Her flesh being pulled and pried at. She clenched her fists and bit her tongue as the pain of his investigation coursed through her body.

  Darlington found himself at Highcastle in record time, helped partly by weather that was as mild and cooperative as he dare have wished. For time, he feared, was not on his side.

  At the door, he did not wait to be greeted properly, and, indeed, forced himself inside, his forehead wet with perspiration and his gut fiery with anger. Darlington’s head was full of competing thoughts, most of them rallying for first position. He bellowed into the vast, cavernous hall, “Hello?! Lady Bloomsbury! Make yourself available at once!”

  In short order came the sound of clackety-clack boots and shushing skirts. It was a maid.

  “Sir! What is the meaning of this intrusion? Is our Sarah Jane ill?”

  “Sarah Jane is well. I have come for word of the elder daughter.”

  “Oh, I … I …”

  The maid’s face twisted up in a painful arrangement that Darlington recognized as the contortions of the distressed who might be torn between loyalties. He seized his chance, grabbing the woman by the shoulders, he beseeched her. “You must tell me where she is! She’s in grave danger, Miss. Unfairly imprisoned.”

  The maid’s mouth hung open, and she began to utter something unintelligible when they were interrupted by the entrance of Lady Bloomsbury herself, who had glided into the reception hall as silent as a soaring nightingale.

  “Perhaps I might enlighten the duke, Tansom. Run along now. Don’t worry about tea; the duke will not be staying.”

  Darlington swung round. “You! You evil bat! Tell me where she is! What have you done with her?”

  If Lady Bloomsbury was upset, her demeanor did not unveil it. She stood tall and proud, her regal head jutting up from her mourning collar. “Tell me, Duke, how are things at the mine? As bad as we’re hearing?”

  Darlington wished to snap her neck in two, and he felt his fingers fidget their way into claw-like talons. “Worse, you heartless biddy. You have forced me into matrimony, and your daughter is safely tucked inside my home, but you must see that Lacy—Lady Lacilia—is freed at once, or I cannot guarantee what I might do…”

  “Ha! Your little tart is getting the assistance she needs that she may live a life of grace and worth.”

  She stepped closer to him, her finger wagging in his face. “When I told you I didn’t expect you to remain faithful to Sarah Jane, I did not expect you to take up with that whore of a stepdaughter and make us the laughing stock of the country.”

  Darlington clenched his jaw. It took everything he had to not push the woman to the floor for her cruelty. He met her rancor with some of his own. “I’ll have you know that your stepdaughter is a virgin. She had planned to carry out the earl’s wishes, and live a life in service to the greater good, and now you’ve seen fit to derail her from her path.”

  “The greater good? Holing up with a promised man in an inn of ill-repute with her future brother-in-law? That is this greater good you speak of?”

  Darlington could not hold back any longer. His hands found their way round the widow’s neck, and he squeezed, “Where is she you wench?!”

  She seethed, and coughed out a labored, “So now you will have my daughter married to a murderer?”

  He released her and turned his head. “I should kill you, but I don’t have it in me to murder. Pity, that.”

  He whipped round once more, and offered a parting shot. “You will burn in hell, you sorry excuse for a human. Make no mistake!”

  With that he bolted out the door and fled down the steps to his horse, who was still lathered from the spirited ride. His wits had quite deserted him, and now he was in danger of riding his favorite horse to its death. Oh, the humanity!

  Darlington led the horse to a small brook at the edge of the drive, and the horse gulped water. “Easy, boy,” Darlington soothed, his wits recovered enough to remember to ease the stallion into his sips, lest the horse succumb to bloat.

  His mind was still whirling with discordant upsets when he saw the valet walking toward him. Likely ready to dismiss him with a firm warning. The duke steeled himself for the opprobrium.

  But when the man reached him, his face was muddled with the same sort of turmoil as the maid’s. This valet was conflicted in his new assignment, and Darlington leapt at his mercy.

  “Our earl must be rolling in his crypt,” he offered. “Kent, isn’t it?”

  “Your Grace,” he sighed, giving a slight bob to his head as form dictated.

  “Certainly, in all your years of service to such a benefactor of good, you can see that the widow has undone much of his legacy in short order?”

  The valet sighed again. His eyes were filled with sorrow. Tears threatening to flow from their corners.

  “Well then?”

  “Your Grace, it is not my place to contradict the Lady Bloomsbury, and she’ll surely have my head, but if I were to remain silent, I could not live with myself.”

  Darlington, for the first time since that luxurious night in the arms of his beloved, felt an elation take root beneath his ribs. “Tell me, Man. Where is she? I must know!”

  “I will tell you, Sir. But I also must tell you something more. You see, I accompanied the young lady and the earl last year when they tra
veled to London. They met with a solicitor then. There is a peremptory will, one which has been sealed due to Lady Bloomsbury’s petition and accusation.”

  “Accusation?”

  “She has convinced the court that she must act as guardian to Lady Lacilia, claiming our young lady suffers from hysteria. If that claim is not disproven, the sealed will and testament of a very good man will never see the light of day.”

  The most effective treatment for an unmarried woman showing signs of hysteria is to find a husband.

  ~ Common advice in the 1870s

  THE LACES AROUND her wrists criss-crossed like the binding ties of a corset, but instead of silk, the restraints were made of rough hemp. Every time she moved, the rope cut into her flesh, injuring her delicate arms ever further. Her ankles, too, were tied to some sort of anchor.

  Lacilia had been in and out of consciousness, and it was hard to discern if pain, lack of food, or more of the chloroform was to blame.

  Her head pounded. Her heart skipped beats. She tasted blood every so often and discovered, much to her horror, that her tongue was now scored with a nasty gash. Had she bitten it?

  Though she couldn’t sit up, a glance at the ceiling above confirmed that Lacy was no longer in the observation room. They’d hauled her back to surgery – or perhaps to a laboratory where all manner of experiments might be conducted on her person.

  She heard a moan, and a gut-wrenching scream. There were other patients in this room. Other women being treated for so-called female hysteria. She joined the cacophony.

  “Help!” she shouted, more to learn if she could still speak, given the status of her tongue. At least her throat had been spared.

  The face of the evil nurse loomed above her then. “Shut it!” she snapped. “Or I’ll give you more of the sedative.”