Felicity: An American Girl ROMANCE: PT2, CH8: No Means NO!
The carriage ride back to Forsythe Manor was not what Reginald Forsythe envisioned it would be like: his beautiful young bride lay asleep on the bench across from him and Smedley and not encased in his eager grasp, but snoring like a passed-out drunk. Helga sat up top with the coachman because Smedley abhorred heights and would become violently ill. But Reginald was looking forward to his wedding night, whether his bride was or not. She was a wife now, his wife, and she would act like it by coming to him willingly or she would get whipped deservingly for it!
She was carried right back up to her room and placed on the bed upon their return. Then Forsythe asked that the maid servants leave him be with his sleeping wife. Genevieve and Helga exchanged wary looks as they quit the room, both of them knowing very well they were about to hear shrieks, curses, and quite possibly the smashing of throwable porcelain knick-knacks. The powders would be wearing off now. That spitfire girl was not about to accept being a wife.
Felicity was yawning as Forsythe sat down beside her on the edge of the bed facing her. He had never had any kind of experience with a woman before. Not ever. But he did not want this girl to know that, for he was a man, and a man was expected to already possess carnal knowledge entering into marriage, so that they could teach their virginal, innocent little wives what is to be expected. She had to be willing to submit. She had to. She had no choice now. It was be a wife or be painfully punished.
She was stirring some, not fully awake, so Forsythe chose that moment to lean over her, grip her by the shoulders, and move in for a kiss. His thin lips pushed weakly against hers, but it was enough to wake her instantly. Felicity's green eyes snapped open wide in revulsion; it took not even a second to realize what he was trying to do. She made a spitting, sputtering sound and shoved him with all the tense force she could gather having just woken from a medicated sleep.
Not having expected such a forceful rejection, Forsythe literally fell off the edge of the bed, eyes bulging and mouth open in shock. Felicity sat up quickly, wiping her mouth roughly with the back of first one arm then the other. She found herself to be a bit dizzy still, but she ignored it, for protecting her own person was an instinctive, intense objective.
"Don't you dare!" she yelled at him fiercely, swinging her legs and the whole of the pink silk gown over the side of the bed as she hastily stood up, swayed a little. "Ick! You try anything like that with me again, and I'll pound you into apple-butter!" Her fists balled at her sides, ready to defend her own honor.
Sprawled on the carpet, Forsythe stared up at her, startled, but then grew outraged. He scrambled to his feet, too. "You are my wife now, Felicity! You cannot and will not refuse me!"
"Oh yes I can and I will!" she shot back defiantly. "I am not your wife, for a marriage requires two willing people, and I am not willing!"
"You agreed!"
"You tricked me! You know what you did!"
Forsythe was a bit wobbly. "It does not matter, for the vows have been made and we are legally wed! Now do as you are bound to and remove that gown-!"
Slap!
The impact of Felicity's fast, cheek-stinging strike made Forsythe's head whip in the direction in which the slap was aimed. He popped a hand to his face and gaped at her incredulously, his chin trembling. For one brief, comical moment he looked so ridiculous that Felicity truly expected him to cry out for his mother.
He finally found his voice, albeit shakingly. "How-how dare you! You-you-you...Lucille would have never done that-!"
"I am NOT Lucille!" she hollered, gesturing crazily. "And I am no wife of yours or anybody else's! What is the matter with you? Is there something wrong with your head that prevents you from hearing the word 'no'?"
Indeed, he seemed not to be able to hear her now. He stood there, holding his cheek and staring at her, wild-eyed, as if he had been stunned into a paralysis or sorts. At length he gulped, mangaed a weak, angry expression and said shakingly, "I told you, Felicity, that if you did not give yourself to me willingly I would have you punished."
Oh no...
"I mean to make good on that promise!" Still holding his cheek, he spun on his unnaturally high heel and strode to the jib-door, slamming it shut behind him. But there was no sound of the bolt being latched!
Felicity realized that and hurried to the door. Unlocked! She flung it wide open...but nearly collided with the burly wall that was Madame Helga, hands on hips. Behind Helga was mysterious Lettie, who dark face was expressionless but who's even darker eyes burned into Felicity's green ones.
"Vat have you done now?" Helga demanded, sounding like a scolding mother. "And vhere do you zink you are going?"
"I want to get out of here!" Felicity screamed angrily, knowing better than to try to fight physically with the big woman but stood her ground anyway. "None of the rest of you care to have me here, so why not help me get away?"
Lettie's cool gaze went to Helga as well.
Helga pointed her stubby, chubby finger back into the room at arm's length. "Because vork ist hard to find, und I need zis employment! Now back in you go!"
Fists and teeth clenched, Felicity whirled while making a furious, frustrated sound in her throat and did as she was ordered. She stomped to the white marble fireplace then faced the burly woman in the doorway. "He is preparing to have me lashed!"
Helga stepped inside just long enough to allow Lettie admittance to the room, then moved back into the doorway. "Vell, zat ist vat you get vhen you defy your Lord und Master!"
"He is not my 'lord and master!' I utterly despise him, and you know why!"
"Zen you get vhat you are asking for!"
Before Felicity could yell another word in outrage, the quietly stony Lettie approached her and said coolly, "Your dress, Miss."
"My 'what'?" Momentarily distracted, Felicity rubbed her forehead.
"Your dress. I am to assist you in changing because Genevieve does not want to mess with clothing anymore." She spoke low and with that exotic accent that Felicity found so intriguing.
"I vill leave Lettie vith you," Helga told her authoritively. "Do not give her any of your sass und maybe you vill get to have dinner!"
"And what a shame that would be," retorted Felicity with bitter sarcasm,"having to miss my dinner-powders!"
"You have too much sass for your own goot!" Helga snapped, then slammed the door shut, leaving Felicity and Lettie in sudden awkward silence.
"Oh that woman is a hag!" Felicity fumed aloud, taking up nervous pacing from bed foot to fireplace. "I hate her just as much as I hate him! If either one of them believe for one moment that a thrashing is going to get me to sacrifice my innocence just to-" She stopped ranting, for Lettie had just spoken in a low tone again. "What did you say?"
Lettie's passively seething dark eyes met Felicity's uncertain green ones. Again she said, "He will not harm you to-day."
Felicity swept over to the young woman, her heart up in her throat. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean what I say," replied Lettie smoothly.
Obviously confounded, Felicity gulped despite a worry-induced dry mouth. "Please tell me ag-"
"His barrister has arrived unannounced. His business is in trouble. He cannot delay attending to it any longer."
Releasing a long pent-up sigh of relief, Felicity sank into the white chair at the vanity table sideways, so that she could wrap her arms around the back of it. "His 'business?' He is a slaver! What kind of 'business' is that for a human being?"
Lettie said nothing.
Felicity raised her mussed up red head and looked at the slave girl wearily. "How do I know that what you say is true?"
"You are not like the others." Lettie's emotionless eyes showed that she was not in the least bit offended by the question.
"The 'others'?" Felicity blinked in surprise.
"The other white women. You are...different."
"Oh. I come from the American Colonies- but not of my own free will, you see-"
"That is not my meaning," Lettie interrupted again, stonily. "You are rejecting of this place and its lord."
"Yes, well...Reginald Forsythe is no lord of mine. He stole me from my home,"
"As he did me," said Lettie emotionlessly. "Turn around. We need to be occupied so the big woman does not come back too soon. She listens for activity."
"Oh! Of course..." Felicity did as Lettie ordered, having no desire to have Helga come back in right when it seemed she had established an uneasy alliance with the mysterious young slave. "Where are you from?"
At first Lettie did not answer. She began unlacing the back of the pink gown. Felicity was about to issue an apology for perhaps trying to push for something off-limits, but Lettie said quietly, "Far from here." Instinctively Lettie knew Felicity wanted more detail, for she had been quite an observer of white behavior for quite sometime now. She knew of what nature a person was in no time flat.
"Where the grass is tall and yellow, and the animals are more people than the people are. In your tongue the whites call it Afrikka."
"I-I have never heard of that place before," said Felicity in a soft whisper. Lettie said nothing, just continued unlacing the pink gown's back-stays, so Felicity asked curiously, "Why are you helping me?"
"I am not helping you."
"But you are." Felicity turned her head a little, her heart sinking just the slightest bit. "Were you ordered to tell me Forsythe would be occupied with his barrister for the rest of the day?"
There was a moment of silence, then "No."
"So why tell me at all? Why not just ignore me and let me continue worrying about being whipped until I eventually found out on my own?"
The dark girl was finished with the gown's lacing. She pushed the pink silk material open and stepped back. "You get into your day dress now."
But Felicity didn't move. "Lettie..."
"What do you want to hear, that I feel sorry for you, a white woman?"
Dumbfounded, Felicity turned around, her expression more concern-stricken that anything else. "Lettie, I don't know! I was only wanting to know why anyone in this wretched house would be willing to help me when everyone is afraid of that spoiled rat! Does he whip everyone who tells him 'no'?"
Lettie's chin lifted, her dark eyes scrutinizing as she contemplated. After yet another awkward moment of silence, she said "No one is whipped; it is unnecessary. There are worse things than whipping."
"Like what?" Felicity shuddered visibly.
The girl studied Felicity's morbidly curious face. "It is not for you to know."
"Lettie," the red-head entreated, coming around the chair quickly, desperation tinging her voice, "is it possible that you can help me escape? You are not like the others, either! You do not seem to be worn down by him and this place-Could...could we not escape together?"
Immediately Lettie turned away, strode to the tall white wardrobe and hastily withdrew a lavender, lacy dress dress from the wooden rack it was laying over, and promptly brought it to Felicity. "You put this on now." As if she had not heard Felicity's question at all!
"Lettie, talk to me!" Felicity refused to accept the dress. She glanced quickly at the door, hoping no one was about to burst in at this crucial moment. "I know that you do not want to be here any more than I do! Is there a way we can escape together? I-I will take you back to Virginia with me!"
Lettie dropped the lavender dress on the foor of the bed and stared at Felicity over her shoulder. "So that I may become your slave, too?" The question was full of burning hatred, not aimed at the bewildered red-head, but at the abominable situation of slavery in general.
Felicity couldn't help but feel stabbing painsof guilt. "No! No, of course not! I just wanted to-"
"I do not need your white pity." Lettie crossed to the jib-door, her back turned. "We will speak again soon."
"Lettie, please! I meant no offense!" Felicity's arms dropped helplessly to her sides as panic threatened to overwhelm her. "Don't go! You're the only one here I can talk to!"
Lettie had paused only briefly, but left the room nonetheless, slipping out as quietly as a ghost. Felicity glimpsed Madame Helga sitting out in the hall on an ornate bench with a lap full of drab knitting, which she was putting aside now to close and bolt the jib-door. Helga gave her a 'Just you stay put, Missy' look. Of course, the door was swiftly bolted once shut.
Tears sprang into Felicity's eyes then. For one blissful moment she had thought there was hope. In her mind she scolded herself severely for thinking that there was a way out. So Lettie did not trust white people-there was good reason for that. But the young woman seemed proud, so wary, so...mysterious. Felicity dropped onto the foot of the bed beside the stupid, frilly lavender dress and leaned against one of the wrought iron bedposts to pour over her emotions.
The dark girl did say they would speak again soon.
Felicity remembered the satiny pink thing she was wearing was unlaced and open in the back. She quickly shimmied out of it, tossed it aside and got into the so-called day dress as fast as she could. Some day dress! It struck her as being far too fancy to be worn for daytime activities-but then nothing about this place or its people was normal, she reminded herself bitterly. Not even me. Not anymore.
And she was married now.
No! 'Twas an act in a play! A marriage is a union of TWO willing people, not a forceful fop and an unwilling little weed full of powders! And then a momentarily-forgotten thought oozed back into her mind: you are supposed to take your own life before that part of Forsythe's 'play' can be consummated. Now, how are you going to go about it?
I don't want to! I don't want to die!
Well of course you dont, silly goose! But nor do you want to be at Forsythe's mercy. Think about what he just tried to do!
But I slapped him! He is physically WEAK! 'Twould seem as if he not only does not know what to do with a woman, but that he is incapable of physical domination...and that is why he had to employ the likes of Mr. Gooch and Madame Helga. He KNOWS I can overpower him physically...
...which means he could make arrangements like having me tied down or something horrible like that! Oh God, I cannot allow that to happen!
'Twould be best just to continue with the original plan.
Lettie did return with Felicity's supper, but the stony-faced slave girl could not speak a word for Madame Helga's governing presence. The big woman had, however, noticed that Felicity did not lash out at Lettie, nor verbally put up a fight. Instead of seeing this as something to get suspicious over, Helga percieved it as a blessing, for she was in no mood for the red-head's outlandishness. Downstairs, Forsythe was already in a mood, having received unpleasant news about the state of the 'family business.' The news wasn't all that surprising, but the young lord was taking it as if Doomsday was approaching.
"I see zat you ist civil vith Lettie," observed Helga aloud from the doorway. "Zen she vill be your new personal maid from now on."
"Good!" snapped Felicity where she sat at the little white tripod table with her dinner of fried fish, rice, custard and dinner wine. "She is nice and quiet, and not only does she have a far more pleasant face to look at than any of you, she does not haul me around like a soulless she-bear!"
"Ha! Shtill making vit ze nasty names, eh?" Helga looked more amused than offended. A superior smile pushed her ruddy cheeks up as she crossed her arms over her big chest. "You vill never learn!"
Felicity glared at her. "Especially when I am treated like a prisoner on the verge of execution!"
Lettie's back was to Helga, so that she could pour milk from a porcelean pitcher into Felicity's glass. The dark girl looked at Felicity warningly, as if to say "Do not push her." Under her breath she muttered ever so lowly, "Now is not the right time."
Meeting's Lettie's eyes, Felicity understood right away, breathed deep, and began to shovel in her supper so that her mouth would be too full of food for her to speak should she be tempted to get verbally defiant again. Lettie had to go then, with Helga hovering too close by, and could not even speak with Felicity when she returned for the supper dishes for Helga's standing too near. No one came to help her out of the lavender day dress, which was just fine with Felicity, who didn't mind sleeping in the stupid frilly thing anyway. Somehow, being bound up in a corset gave her the feeling of a little more protection.
As had become the norm for her, sleep was fitful and troubled. She dreamt of her family being ill and Ben being ferociously angry at her. She would emit a restless, sorrowful moan, twist and frown, then lapse back into a temporary deep sleep for a while again. It was during one of those lapses that someone crept into the room.
Reginald Forsythe licked his lips, but he was more nervous than aroused. Dealing with his family's lawyer had kept him occupied for more than the latter half of the day and he had been so frustrated and upset that he had preferred to dine alone that evening so that he could attempt to sort out his thoughts concerning the possibility of his father's slaving business going bankrupt.
Definitely not the way he had envisioned spending his first day as a married man.
Clad in nightshirt and silver silk sleeping breeches, he hesitated at the foot of the bed,knowing what he wanted to do with the ravishing red-head but not sure of how to go about doing it. As soon as she sensed his presence she she would start fighting him, much as he hated to admit it. He had not been able to see to her punishment today.
However, tomorrow was another day.
She just had to be made to understand that she was a wife now, and had to obey her husband. That was how it was with married men and women. The way it had always been. Somehow, he had to find a way to tame his new wild-child bride! Miss Lucille would have never carried on like this. She would have settled down and accepted her wifely responsibilities.
Determined to find a way to consummate his marriage, he slowly started for the side of the bed Felicity wasn't sleeping on. Perhaps if he moved slowly so as to not wake her, he could get close enough to her to force her to lie still.
But even as foggy-headed as she was from her evening dose of powders, Felicity was able to become awake the moment she had heard that jib-door bolt unlatch. In the time she had been here, she had managed to train herself to become immediately defensive when she heard it unlatch. She lay there on her left side facing one of the long, tall windows with her eyes shut, feigning sleep, relying on her sense to tell her who had entered.
She had hoped it was Lettie, but it didn't take long to figure out it wasn't. It wasn't Helga, for Helga had heavy footsteps even when she was walking low. Genevieve always had sniffles for some reason or another and could not go two minutes wihtout sniffing at all. So Felicity assumed it was Forsythe himself, creeping in to have another go at marriage consummation. She was outraged and enraged, of course, and instinct told her to jump up and attack him in the manner of a flying squirrel, but the part of her that hated him for all that he had done (being a slaver included) all of a sudden had her thinking of a different reaction instead: she was going to let him get as close as she dared let him.
Oblivious to her consciousness, Forsythe put one sliver silk-clad knee on the bed, paused, waited to see if this slight pressure elicited any response from her. When it did not, he proceeded with his other knee and both hands for crawling on.
Inwardly, Felicity cringed and braced herself.
A smug smile started to spread across Forsythe's face. So far so good. He moved turtle-slow close to Felicity's covered back. A thin hand lifted the heavy white covers from off of her top shoulder, exposing her long red hair in waves, which he could not resist touching. His fingers lifted a silky lock.
That's it, Felicity decided, her disgust soaring. Close enough! She chose that very moment to inhale deeply, turn her placid face slowly in his direction, and in a sleepy, dreamy voice said, "Ben, is that you? Oh Ben, my love, you have come to save me at last!"
"By God!" Forsythe hollered in rage, recoiling back on his knees, his hands in fists, his face contorted in sheer fury. "You dare to speak his name as my wife?"
"Yes I do!" Felicity hollered back, flicking back the bed sheets and leaping to her feet, revealing herself to still be in the now-rumpled lavender day dress. "Ben Davidson is the only man I would ever share a bed with!"
This only served to enrage him more. Through clenched teeth he spat, "You would spread your legs for that damned apprentice and not for your own husband?"
"YES! And you are no husband of mine, you spasm! You will only touch me after I'm dead!"
"Oh you are most wrong, little hellion!" He scrambled across the bed after her, but Felicity flew to the white marble fireplace and grabbed up a porcelain angel figurine in each hand. "You come to me this instant and act like a wife!"
"Never!" she cried, and hurled one of the angel figures at him so fast that it brushed his arm and landed on the bed.
Out in the hall the sound of rapid footsteps got louder as at least two people were coning to the door.
CHAPTER FINISHED!