My Last Duchess, стр. 48
“No,” Philippa stated. “Absolutely not. And you should cover yourself. What if one of the stable hands returns?”
Rodney peered down at the limp pinkish thing he called his own. It was draped across his thigh in a way that made Philippafeel positively ill. “I bet I’m the biggest man you’ve ever seen.”
Philippa rolled her eyes and started braiding her hair.
“ ’Course you never saw anyone else,” he added. “I know that. You were a virgin all right. Of course you were. I had to forcemy way, you know.”
She did know, and the recollection made her grind her teeth.
“Though I did right by you too,” Rodney said, as oblivious as ever.
“You did what?”
“Didn’t you notice when I tiddle-taddled you?” he asked. “Diddled you right where I was supposed to, giving you women’s pleasure.I expect we’ll be making love two or three times a day in the next year. I expect we won’t even get out of bed in the nextfew weeks. Not even to eat. My daddy planted me in the very first week of his marriage, and I aim to keep to the tradition.”
If Philippa hadn’t already made up her mind, that would have done it.
She was not going to marry Rodney Durfey. Even though he had told the whole village at age nine that he would marry her orno one. Even though she had spent her girlhood being complimented by those who thought she was the luckiest girl in the world.
Even though she had given him her virginity, which rendered her, for all intents and purposes, unmarriageable.
Just at the moment, she had absolutely no problem with that idea.
“I’m leaving, Rodney,” she said.
“Won’t you kiss me good-bye?” he said, his blue eyes still hazy.
“No.”
And she walked out, feeling—as her nursemaid would have said—meaner than a barnyard dog. As she walked away, she realizedthat it wasn’t an entirely new sensation. She’d been a little angry at Rodney for a long time.
After he’d made his famous declaration in St. Mary’s Church, Little Ha’penny, no boy ever looked at her twice. She was “thatlucky Damson miss,” destined to be the next Lady Durfey. What’s more, no one ever asked her what she thought about Rodney, about his pale blue eyes, or his round buttocks, or the way he looked at her heaven-sent bosom.
Her mother had died the summer before, clutching Philippa’s hand and repeating how glad she was that her little girl was takencare of. Her father had told her over and over that he was grateful to have been spared the expense and bother of a Bath seasonor—even more onerous—a trip to London to be sponsored into society by her godmother.
The Damsons and the Durfeys had always celebrated Yuletide together and walked to the front of church together at Easter.When both ladies in their respective families passed away . . . well, Sir George and Mr. Damson, Esq., simply kept trudgingside by side as they had before.
Their children’s marriage would place Damson land in the hands of the baronet, which everyone, including Philippa’s father,agreed was a good idea.
“My land runs alongside his,” he had told her once, when Philippa complained that Rodney had stolen her doll and chopped offits head. “You two will be married someday, and this is the boy’s way of showing affection. You should be happy to see howthat lad adores you.”
Everyone had always told her just how she should feel, from the time she was seven years old: lucky, special, celebrated,and beautiful.
Now, though, she felt nauseated.
She also felt like running away. Her father would never understand if she told him that she’d changed her mind about marryingRodney. It wasn’t as if she could claim Rodney was cruel, or bestial, or even unlikable.
And the moment her father found out what had just happened in the barn—which he would, because Rodney would stop at nothingto marry her—he would deliver her to the altar no matter how fervent her protests.
No, if she wanted to escape Rodney, she would have to run away.
She took a deep breath. Why on earth couldn’t she have figured this out yesterday rather than after that unpleasant episodein the barn? She’d never granted Rodney more than kisses until this afternoon. Instead, she had drifted along like a twigcaught in a stream, not really visualizing her life with Rodney. The nights with Rodney.
But now . . . there might be a baby. She walked back to her family’s trim house, so different from the garish brick monstrositythat was Durfey Manor, worrying about the possibility.
She loved babies; she always tried to steal away from tea parties and find her way to the nursery. What’s more, she had spenther happiest hours with her uncle, a doctor in Cheshire, who allowed her to accompany him as he ministered to village children.
Still, it was that possible baby who posed the greatest dilemma. She wasn’t sentimental about the life of servants. She couldn’tcondemn Rodney’s child to a life of servitude, which is what her life was bound to be if she was with child but neverthelessfled her intended marriage.
Her mind was spinning like a whirligig in the wind. Finally, she made a decision: she would leave it up to fate. If therewas a baby, she would resign herself. Walk down that aisle, smile, become Lady Durfey. She shuddered at the thought.
But if not . . . she’d steal freedom.
That very night, she discovered that Rodney had failed to “plant” anything, to use his repulsive terminology.
Philippa was still thinking about what it meant, and what she would do next, when she realized that Betty, the upstairs maid,was chattering on and on about a castle. Elsewhere in England, people undoubtedly talked of the great castles of Windsor andEdinburgh, but around Little Ha’penny, there was only one castle worth discussing: Pomeroy. It stood on the other side ofthe great forest, its turrets just tall enough to be