Aftermath

"Estella!" The voice, as sweet as song, echoed from the staircase. Abruptly, Lotho released Estella and hurried back to the finished painting of himself, pretending to resume his inspection. He tried to calm his ragged, excited breathing, biting down on his lip as he pushed his disordered shirt and turgid member back into his trousers. The door swung open...

"Stel..." Pervinca Took swept into the room, Pippin's double in feminine form, right to the brilliant green eyes glowing with good humour, "Since you never seem to have time to answer my letters – oh..." she stopped short, her delicate nose wrinkling with ill-concealed distaste at the sight of Lotho, "hello Lotho, what are you doing here?"

Lotho focused on adjusting the set of his jacket cuffs, pulling them down to cover the skin Estella had torn with her nails. He turned from the picture, avoiding Pervinca's questing gaze. "Just leaving," at the door he paused to look back at Estella. She was leaning over the worktable, apparently intent upon her pigment jars, her back to both of them. "You think about what we have discussed, Estella. Think very carefully." With a nod in Pervinca's direction, he slammed the door behind him.

"What in stars did he want?" Pervinca mused, making a face at his back. She approached the easel. Here she thought she had found her answer. She eyed the painting, head at a bird-like angle: Lotho, complete with puffed out chest and smug smile, was the image of pomposity! "We have some prodigiously ugly warty old toads in the pond at Great Smials should you wish to continue in this vein – I'll ask Pip to catch one for you." There was no answer from the other girl, neither laughter nor a defence of her work, the continued silence puzzling Pervinca into changing tack, "Aren't you glad to see me? I came over with your parents – well, I rode on ahead, they're too leisurely for me..."

At last Estella lifted her bowed head and turned toward Pervinca. Across her left cheek was the hectic red mark of a blow, and a set of scratches, beginning to ooze blood, ran from the base of her throat to her breast, where her bodice hung limply on one side, torn across. Otherwise, she was deathly pale.

Pervinca's mouth fell open with shock. She rushed to Estella, leading her to sit in the chair so recently home to Lotho's slug-like body. It was hard to find words, much less form them – her mind was reeling. The state of Estella's dress told a tale that neither Pervinca nor any other hobbit was too innocent to guess at. "What...what has happened? Dearest, what has he...?"

Estella covered her face with shaking hands. "You have saved me from something so terrible... I...I feel sick..."

Thrusting the first paint pot to hand at Estella, Pervinca gently held her hair back while she was violently ill, the bile seeming to dredge from the very bottom of her being. At last the paroxysms ended, although Estella still shook as though in a fever. She suddenly became aware that she was partly unclothed and tried to pull her bodice together. Swiftly, Pervinca removed her own shawl and wrapped it about her kinswoman's shoulders. She pushed the damp hair back from Estella's brow, a sparkle of sympathetic tears making her eyes glow like emeralds. "Tell me, Stella, did he? Did he force you?"

Estella shook her head mutely. There would be scratches in other places – on her buttocks and thighs where he had clawed at her, trying to prize her legs apart – the bracelet of bruises on her arms...She had fought him with every ounce of her strength, and he would have his own marks of battle, she was sure, but it had been so close to completion, only the realization that Pervinca was about to come into the room had prevented him from entering her.

Taking the paint pot from her, Pervinca gently wiped her face with the apron that had been thrown on the floor. Her delicacy and concern were the greatest possible contrast with Lotho's violent, determined assault and Estella grabbed Pervinca's hand, squeezing it fit to break the bones. "I have never been so glad to see you, dear, dearest 'Vinca," her voice was low and ragged, "If you hadn't come...I...I couldn't fight him anymore..."

They had ever been the best of friends, as much a pair as Merry and Pippin, and Pervinca was frantic with worry for Estella. She bent to embrace her, holding her shivering shoulders. "Estella, your parents must be told -," she continued over Estella's protest, "whatever madness made him behave this way he cannot be allowed..."

"'Vinca, I beg you, no-one must know," wiping her streaming nose with the back of her hand, Estella gazed at the painting on the easel, her gorge rising again at the sight, "I've spent weeks on that...thing," she gestured with revulsion to Lotho's image. "It will be said I led him on to it – that I – that it's impossible I could have spent all those hours and hours painting him, alone with him and not... and never..."Her voice dissolved once more into broken sobs, "How? How could I have been so stupid? So blind?"

"What do you mean? We all thought him nothing more than a fool, no-one knew he was mad, Stella...How could anyone blame you?" Pervinca felt confused. Estella was still shivering, her movements jerky and oddly puppet- like. Doing her best to offer comfort, Pervinca rubbed her shoulder only to hear the sharp intake of breath that betrayed pain, "No-one could believe you wanted this."

"I know what Lotho will say!" Estella was able to rasp out the words against another wave of nausea.

Pervinca frowned. "It doesn't matter what he says – no-one will take his part!"

Estella shook her head once more, nausea and dizziness almost overwhelming her. She felt hardly able to breathe, and slumped against the high back of the old chair, regarding Pervinca through heavy, reddened lids. "You don't understand, 'Vinca... My father's debts, you see, require redress...there have been Bolgers at Budgeford since time immemorial and now...now we could lose it all, unless..."

Gently, Pervinca rubbed her hand, trying to follow but still floundering. "What has all that to do with Pimple?"

"He says it's all decided – Lotho will keep a roof over my family's head but only if I am sold in marriage to him. Only no one told me. They all knew..." A sudden, horrible thought came to her: had Merry been told she was promised to another? Was that why he had seemed different towards her of late?

As if reading her mind, Pervinca said: "Merry."

"No! Pervinca, please!"

"He must be told Estella-," she returned the pressure of Estella's handclasp, as if her own certainty could be channeled into the other girl, "If you tell him, you can marry and he'll pay your father's debts, a hundred fold if need be! Lotho can't possibly claim you if Merry does!"

Something of Estella's native pride returned to her, betrayed by the suddenly lifting of her chin. "How could I ask that of him? It would be begging him to marry me! And what if he didn't wish it, but wanted..."

"Of course he wishes it!" Pervinca insisted, "He kissed you – he said ..."

"But he has changed to me Pervinca... and we have had such arguments...everything I say seems to come out all wrong, and he... he..." she remembered the way he'd looked at Pennyroyal last night, not the first open act of flirting he'd meant her to see, and a pain worse than any Lotho could inflict contracted within her heart. "I think he's trying to make me understand that he never meant to bind himself...that he regrets..."

"You think?" Pervinca's soft voiced question halted the flow of words. She squeezed the other girl's hand, "Oh, Estella." More tears came then. Pervinca laid a light kiss on Estella's brow and drew her up from the chair. It did not escape her notice that Estella seemed to be in pain on moving, and her disquiet deepened. "Stella, if you are determined this is to remain secret..."

"I couldn't bear anyone to know," she fixed Pervinca's gaze with her own huge-eyed stare, "promise me you won't tell anyone Pervinca."

"Very well," although it was against her better judgement, Pervinca nodded, "we must get you tidied up. A bath perhaps, dear Stella?"

Estella thought of Lotho's clammy hands moving on her skin and shivered – would she ever be able to wash that feeling away? "Yes. That is what I need."

"I will call Dandy."