“I plan to return to Marlborough after the New Year’s celebration,” I said, glad for once to speak of home, which felt familiar and warming. “I haven’t visited my mother for some time.”
He smiled and made pleasant, educated chatter about the music. I drew a bit closer to him when I noticed Jamie looking in my direction. This seemed to please Sir John. “May I bring you a goblet of wine?” he asked.
I nodded, and wished that Jamie would come and sit nearby me in Sir John’s absence, but he did not. Sir John handed me a cup overfull, and drew near and talked with me for some time, about nothing at all of importance; the more I talked with him the more I disliked him, but he seemed to take no notice of that and I could not keep up the happy pretense. Finally I said, “I must return to my chamber.”
“So soon?”
“As I am alone I do not like to return too late. Thank you, Sir John.”
“May I persuade you to let me accompany you to your room, as the hour does, indeed, grow late?”
I nodded. It was a gentlemanly thing to do. We walked down the long galleries, tapers fluttering on the wall sconces, I weary and disappointed. Most doors were shut. I heard a small noise from within Dorothy’s chamber; ’twas she or the maiden she shared with, already returned for the eve.
“Thank you,” I said when we arrived. Sir John looked at me inquiringly but did not respond. I realized that he had had too many cups of wine, which was why he was presently unresponsive. As I opened my door he forced himself into my room.
“Sir, please, take your leave!”
“I shan’t, not until I get what you invited me to come here for,” he said, firmly closing the door behind him and blocking me from its path.
“I invited nothing, nor do I want anything from you, but for you to remove yourself.” I tried to dart around him in order to open the door of my chamber to show him out, or shout for assistance, whichever should be required to stop his menace. He blocked me.
“I shall, mistress, but not just yet.” He took both of my arms firmly in one of his own and then tore my gown down the back.
“Sir John! Have you gone mad?” I struggled to free myself and tore loose. I grabbed the small torch from the wall and swung it at him to set him afire but he knocked it from my hand and stamped it out while twisting my arm behind my back. I was firmly held and unable to move. So I shouted.
“Dorothy!” I shouted for the only person whose chamber was close enough to, perhaps, hear. But the chamber doors were heavy and I did not know if the sound of my voice could penetrate through them.
He clamped his one free hand under my jaw, over my closed mouth, so I could not even bite his hand, though I tried.
“If you free yourself or call out, I shall tell everyone that you invited me in and the noise they heard was rough play.”
My eyes were then opened and I knew what he was about to do. He pushed me onto the bed and undid his hose and codpiece. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed that what was about to happen would not happen, would stop.
It did not stop.
I felt myself somehow drifting away from the situation, like a ghost, even as I was assaulted by stabbing pain and harsh treatment; the blood oozed from between my legs, then coursed along my thighs. His body was heavy on mine and though I had closed my eyes against his face I could not stopper my ears to his noises nor spare my skin from his rough beard and foul breath. The music from the evening made its way from my memory into my head along with the beating sound of my heart and I tried desperately to focus upon it whilst calling out in my heart, Lord Jesus! Save me!
To my great sorrow no supernatural rescue arrived and the constant searing pain reminded me that I was there in the flesh. Within a few minutes, Sir John fell back.
“You are a maiden!” he said with surprise. “I, I thought that others had had you.”
“Get out.” I pulled the linens around me but could scarce move my legs because I suffered. “You have badly misjudged me. It would not have mattered, should not have mattered, in any case whether I be a maid or not.”
He looked like a little boy whose governess had never told him no, both pleased that he’d had the temerity to act brashly but afraid of the potential consequences once caught. “None need know this but us. Your own behavior led to this. All saw you willingly seek my company tonight. You cunningly informed me that you would have the chamber to yourself and, therefore, the privacy we required. I should make sure others believe that you decided to cry rape once I declined to proceed further toward any binding relationship.”
“That is wholly untrue!” I protested. “And I shall not allow others to view it that way.”
“It’s all in the mind of the beholder, mistress, and in how it’s presented and by whom. I daresay it will surely bring sly and nasty comments upon the queen’s morals, after all, to have both you and Lady Brooke acting in such a vulgar manner—perhaps that’s why Her Grace chambered you together, hmm? And mark me, no good man will want you once you’ve been … sampled. I know I wouldn’t. And I know how men talk behind closed doors.”
That Kate’s morals and the running of her household would be slandered I knew to be true. She had many enemies sniffing about for a reason to give the king to question her. I did not know the way of men. Could Temple’s conclusion about no good man desiring me now perhaps be true?
He pulled on his doublet. “I told you once, mistress, that reputations are lost quickly at court. They can be best lost through whispers. They can be best retained by silence.”
I recalled Dorothy’s tale of the woman Sir Thomas was accused of debauching, and the shunned and sorry life she’d lived thereafter. ’Twas the unfair and startling truth that whether or not the story was true the consequences certainly were.
He finished dressing. “Justice at court is the domain of men, not women.”
He slammed the door behind him but within a minute, I heard a knock. It became persistent and I knew I must answer but I was so stunned I scarce knew what to do. “Yes.”
Dorothy pushed the door open; I had not gotten up to lock it. “Juliana. I heard the door slam and … oh. Oh,” she moaned. “What happened? Has someone harmed you?” she looked upon the bloody linens and my ripped gown thrown on the floor.
I nodded and answered dully, “John Temple.” She looked once more at the disarray on my chamber floor and then quickly left, pulling the door behind her. Shortly thereafter the midwife came to attend me. I allowed her to, as if in a dream, examine me, though each touch she made bruised me again within and without. I sobbed silent sobs, my body shaking with fear and pain and chill and shame as she finished her work.
The midwife kindly drew me into her ample bosom when she was done. “You will heal.”
“Shall I, shall I get with child?” I asked with dread.
“I’m sorry ta say it may be difficult to ever bear a child due to the damage done ta yer innards. I canna tell just yet. Later, yes.”
“I may never bear a child?” A new and terrible horror followed the one I’d just endured.
She took her hand in mine. “Perhaps. I do not know. Though you shall, after some time, be able to lie with a man again, ’twill perhaps not bear ripe fruit. I can help ye affect a maidenhead later if ye need. You just call upon me.” She gathered up the bedclothes. “I shall dispose a these—no one comments on bloody linens from a midwife—and have new ones sent to you. I shan’t tell anyone of this and I advise ye to keep your peace as well. Men run our world, mistress. It favors a man’s word, and even if some believe that this was not of yer choosing—and I can certainly see that ’twere not—not all will believe it, they won’t.”
I well understood what she said. “I shall keep my own counsel upon this.”
She nodded. “That be wise. Your friend who came quickly ta fetch me, I’ve warned her to speak naught of this again for your reputation’s sake. We three—and the cur who did this—are the only ones who need know of it.”