Beth shuddered and Scotty had to swallow the bile in his throat.
"But then they told me to strip," she announced in a quiet voice. "I refused, of course, and struggled when they tried to forcibly remove the gown. In the end, it basically had to be torn from my body, and I was left to shiver and weep in front of those hungry-eyed men as they bid on me. After that I was rushed off by two of the brothel owner's women, force-fed a horrid-tasting drink and placed in a bed.
"The whole while the women were telling me how lucky I was that the man who'd bought me was kind and didn't wish a struggle or to have me screaming so was having me drugged instead. They said, 'A good many of them fine gentlemen like a fight, and even like to hurt a girl, ye see.' But I didn't see, and I didn't understand what was happening and I don't know what they gave me, but it made me feel all queer and I had little control over myself. I tried to get out of bed when the women left the room. The window of the bedchamber they'd kept me in prior to this one had been boarded up so I couldn't escape, but this one wasn't, and I thought if I could just get to it and climb out . . ."
Beth shook her head. "But I couldn't seem to master my arms and legs enough to even get out of the bed, let alone make the window, and then the 'kind gentleman' was escorted in and there was no escape."
She lowered her head to stare down at her hands as if they were the only thing in the world at that moment, and it made Scotty want to pull her into his lap and hold her until all her pain went away. Part of him wanted to tell her to stop talking, not to tell him any more, but he didn't and simply waited.
"He may have been a kind man, but no man likes to be laughed at," Beth said finally. "And I don't know if it was whatever they'd given me, or maybe hysteria, but when he stripped off his clothes and straightened, I thought him the funniest thing I'd ever seen."
Grimacing, Beth glanced up briefly as she admitted, "I'd never seen a naked man before. The closest was me father in his nightshirt, but even that hid everything except his hairy feet. But this . . ." Beth shook her head and lowered her gaze again.
"He was like a rooster, a sagging chin, narrow shoulders slouching into a big fat belly over short skinny legs, and for some reason, I just started to laugh. And then I couldn't stop, which infuriated him. He wasn't particularly kind or gentle because of it, I suppose, but at least he was quick and left me to cry myself to sleep."
Scotty watched her take a deep breath, and she seemed stronger as she said, "Of course, once I'd been bought and raped, my value dropped considerably. In fact, I was no longer useful to the brothel." Glancing his way, she explained, "This particular establishment only kept the most beautiful women."
"Ye're beautiful," he said almost too softly for her to hear him, but she did.
"Nay. I have red hair," Beth told him as if he might not have noticed.
"Yer hair is beautiful."
"The English don't like red hair," she countered.
"The English are idiots," Scotty growled.
"They also found my freckles unfortunate."
"I love yer freckles."
Ignoring that, Beth said, "I simply didn't measure up. Unfortunately, I also wasn't behaving myself."
Scotty couldn't help noticing she said that with satisfaction.
"Much to their displeasure, I kept trying to escape," she announced with pride, and then grimaced and added, "So I was auctioned off again, this time to a roomful of bullies."
"Dear God," Scotty breathed.
"The winning bidder was a man named Danny Olsen. He had three girls already. I was number four. He broke me in, which translates to he raped me for three days straight, and then he locked me in a room that he only unlocked for customers. I wasn't a very willing girl, ye see, despite his breaking-in. So he sent in the ones who didn't mind the fight in me . . . and for an extra quid they could bruise me as they liked so long as they didn't scar me permanent-like."
Scotty fisted his hands and briefly stopped breathing as rage flowed through him. He was angry, and hurting for her, and feeling so damned helpless because it was too late to change what had happened. Yet she was now telling it all rather emotionlessly, like she was recounting some tale she'd heard. It was as if Beth had separated herself from the events she was describing, and that just made the hearing worse.
"We girls were warned not to run away. Danny said he'd told the children on the streets that he'd pay a quid if they warned him when we ran away and told him where to find us. I was very nice to those children," Beth assured him. "I gave them whatever coin I could manage to squirrel away. The men would tip on occasion, you see. Usually it was the rougher ones. The rougher they were, the more the guilt, and the more likely they were to toss a coin or two extra on me battered body on the way out. I gave every one of those coins to the children on the street. I was hoping that when I tried to run away they would keep their mouths shut." Grimacing, she shrugged. "But it's cold on the street, and those children were always hungry, and in the end, a quid is a quid.
"Every time I ran away, they got a quid and I was dragged back, beaten viciously and locked in the room again. Still, I continued to try. I think I was seventeen when I made my last attempt."
"Seventeen," Scotty breathed with dismay. She'd been locked in a room, beaten and raped for seven years, he realized with horror, and then blinked and asked, "Ye think?"
"Time began to blur in that room," Beth explained with a shrug. "I'm not sure how old I was that last time I managed to escape. Seventeen is my best guess."
Scotty swallowed again.
"Anyway," she continued, "Danny'd had enough by then. He was tired of hunting me down, tired of the trouble I caused. Besides, by that time he had thirteen of us girls and figured he'd hardly miss one . . . and I would serve as a fine example to the others of what to expect if they caused him too much trouble. So, when he caught me that night, he told me flat-out that he intended to beat me to death and leave my corpse in the alley for the rats to feed on, right where the girls would see me out their windows.
"Fortunately," Beth continued as Scotty buried his face in his hands, "Dree happened along then. She didn't know me, and didn't know Danny intended to kill me, but she saw him beating me and intervened. She tore him off of me like he was little more than a toddler, which infuriated him and probably scared him spitless. Foolishly, he pulled his knife and . . . well, that was a mistake. Dree just grabbed Danny and tossed him away up the alley like he was so much trash. He landed on his own knife and died almost instantly.
"When Dree then scooped me up and asked where to take me, the only place I could think was the brothel where the other girls were. She carried me there." Smiling wryly, she said, "I expect she thought she could just leave me and someone would tend my wounds, allowing her to go about her business. Instead, she found a house full of beaten and broken women, most of whom were younger than even me at that point. None of them knew what to do about my injuries. She had to stay and tend me herself.
"I think the other women shocked her," Beth admitted. "Dree probably thought they'd be grateful to be free of the man. Instead, they were frightened and panicky. They were terrified by the fact that our pimp was gone. Even a bad pimp was better than no pimp to their minds, and they blamed her for his absence. Instead of thanking her, they ran around crying, 'Who will protect us now?'"
Beth paused, pursed her lips and then said, "Except for Mary. Mouthy Mary, Dree used to call her, but affectionate-like," she assured him. "That first night Mary just stood up and announced that, seeing as how Dree had killed our protector, she'd just have to take his place." Beth grinned at the memory and admitted, "Basically the girls guilted Dree into acting as our protector and, by the time I healed enough to get out of bed, everything had changed."
Scotty peered at her curiously, noting that she was more animated now and seemed almost chatty as she said, "Dree at first tried to convince us all to leave the house and return to our families, or find a different line of work. But most of us didn't have families, and
I wasn't the only one who had been sold into the business by family members. None of us had an education, or training. We would never be maids or shop girls--none of us knew the first thing about either--so we did the only thing we did know."
Scotty frowned at the realization that she'd stayed a prostitute even once she could have left it.
"But it was better now. No one beat us, not even the customers. Dree wouldn't let them. She lived with us, protected us . . . She even put her money into fixing the house for us. Everything was fine. Well, at first anyway," she muttered, her expression changing to dissatisfaction. "I suppose I knew things were going too well and it couldn't continue."
"What happened?" Scotty asked when she paused and stayed silent for several minutes.
"Oh." Beth glanced to him with surprise, as if she'd been so lost in thought she'd forgotten he was there. Giving her head a shake, she said, "Well, the girls were afraid Dree would leave us. And why not? Nothing was holding her there. She wouldn't take our coin. She wouldn't take payment in trade even from the girls who were willing. There wasn't anything keeping her with us, and none of us understood why she hadn't already just up and left. The girls were scared and started to . . . act up," she said finally.
"Act up?" he asked, now curious.
Beth grimaced. "Getting all catty, and nasty and fighting . . ." She rolled her eyes. "Dear Lord, the fighting!" She shook her head with remembered disgust, and then said, "But then one night, three drunk men attacked one of the girls as she was coming home. Dree was there at once to protect her, of course, but was terribly injured in the doing.
"All of us rushed out when we heard the cry and carted her back inside. We got cloths and water and such and the like, but every minute we were all sure she would die. We had seen the wound she'd taken. It was a wonder to us she'd managed to finish off the attackers before she died, and then a wonder she didn't die before we got her back in the house. But we were all positive she would die there with us . . . only when she didn't and we finally got around to cleaning the wound, it was already healing.
"Uneducated we may have been, but we knew there was something wrong with that. It just plain wasn't normal. We surrounded her and demanded answers. What we didn't know was that she was weak from blood loss and we smelled like mighty fine steak to her at that point. Desperate to get us away from her so that she could go find blood, she told us everything, all about immortals and that she was one."
Beth grinned. "I suspect Dree expected us to all be horrified, consider her a monster now and flee. No doubt she figured that later, after she'd found a blood source and recovered, she'd have to hunt us each down and wipe our memories. But not a one of us ran away, or screamed or even fainted. Instead, we were all oddly relieved."
"Relieved?" Scotty echoed with surprise, and she nodded with amusement.
"Yes. You see, finally here was a way we could repay her. She had taken care of us, and taken nothing in return. But she needed blood to heal, and we could give her that. When Mary asked, Dree admitted she needed to feed on blood regularly and hunted to get it, and again, we could give her that and save her the need to hunt. It could be an exchange instead of us being beholden to her and terrified she might up and leave one day. Dree would continue to keep us safe and we would keep her fed. Everyone was happy," Beth said as if it was simple logic. "And so we went for the next nearly twenty-five years."
"Ye were happy selling yerselves?" Scotty asked with a sort of bewilderment. That hardly seemed to fit with a woman who had repeatedly risked being beaten to death to escape.
Beth hesitated, but then blew her breath out and finally said, "No. I mean, it was not the life I expected to lead. As a child I thought I'd be like my mother, grow up, marry and have children," she admitted and Scotty suspected from her expression that it might have been the first time she'd ever admitted that, even to herself.
"But of course," Beth assured him, "I'd marry a good man, not someone like my father. I'd marry someone like our neighbor Mr. Hardy, who was always ever so kind."
"Then why did you not do that once Dree had saved ye from Danny?" he asked with confusion. "Dear God, ye risked being beaten to death to escape, and then simply settled into the life afterward. Why?"
"Because, as you know, no good man would want a whore for a wife."
Fifteen
Beth's words echoed in his brain. "Because, as you know, no good man would want a whore for a wife."
She'd sounded neither angry nor sorry for herself. She had said it as a simple statement of fact, and Scotty felt like she'd punched him. After all, it was exactly why he had hesitated to claim her, wasn't it? And they weren't merely two mortals who'd fallen in love. They were life mates with all that encompassed, and yet he had struggled with it. He was such an idiot.
"Yes. I tried to escape over and over," Beth said now. "But I knew I couldn't. I knew he'd drag me back. There was really nowhere for me to go. I think in truth I hoped he'd beat me to death, because I--no, not even just I--all of us felt like we were damaged goods. We were the refuse of society. We had been sold like cattle, abused and treated like trash. We felt sullied, not fit for a respectable life anymore, and everyone around us seemed to agree and made sure we knew it. The family members who sold us, the brothel owners and Danny who peddled us, the men who bought our time and then used and abused us, even the children who spat on us in passing for fun. And then there were the 'good women.' With never once a kind word or smile, they'd move as far to the side as they could in passing, sneering down their noses and gathering their skirts close as if we were diseased and whoredom was catchy."
She smiled sadly. "How could we even imagine that anyone would hire us for a respectable position? Or that a good man like Mr. Hardy would want a woman everyone else despised? Hell, after all of that, it was even hard to believe that Mr. Hardy was as good as he seemed. Perhaps he too beat and choked his wife at night because it was the only way he could perform."
Scotty cursed under his breath, wishing he could find and punish every single man, woman, and child who had made her feel this way. And then he closed his eyes in shame as he realized he was one of them.
"Besides," Beth said more cheerfully, "it did change. Now we could choose whom we accepted as our clients and were free to say no if we wished. And we did. We all worked much less than we had before. Dree somehow managed to have Danny's house put into our names, so we never needed to worry about a roof over our heads. All we needed to concern ourselves with was coin for coal, candles, clothing, and food and such. And without Danny or anyone else taking all our money, we didn't have to work as hard or as often. I myself was able to drop down to just two clients. Two of my regulars, who were kind men I liked, who were generous and who I knew would never hurt me."
"Why two?" Scotty asked carefully. "Why not one?"
"Because both wanted to move me to my own lodgings and take care of me," she admitted quietly.
"And ye didn't want that?" he asked.
"I . . . What if they changed their minds and threw me out?" Beth asked instead of answering directly. "Or what if, once they had me all to themselves, they became cruel and abusive?"
"Ye didn't trust them," Scotty said solemnly, and then added, "And why should ye, when yer own father sold ye into such a business."
Beth nodded solemnly.
"So ye kept two, so that . . ."
"Neither could think they owned me," she said quietly. "But those two were enough. For fifteen years I was basically a mistress to two men, but then one died and the other had a change in fortune, so I started making penny pies and going out to sell them as I had with my mother. I'd learned to make proper pastry by then," she added with a smile. "Mouthy Mary showed me."
"Penny pies in the market," he murmured.
Beth nodded. "That's where I found out that my father was dead. Our neighbor Mrs. Hardy still sold warm peas by the market, and she told me. He died just days after he sold me. He'd taken the money from the brothel owner and drunk himself
to death." Her mouth hardened. "I didn't mourn him."
Scotty nodded in understanding, but simply waited. He knew how this story ended, just not all of the particulars.
"Life went on like that for another decade. A couple of the girls saved every penny they made, pooled it together and managed to buy a small pub to run together. Two more married and moved out of the house, and one died of pneumonia, but eventually all of us began to slow down. The girls took in less business, and I went to market less, especially in the winter. And then Dree convinced us to retire. She bought a house on the other side of London in an area where no one knew us and we could introduce ourselves as respectable widows, or simply old spinsters . . . whatever we chose. We could make friends and play gin and do needlepoint and be little old ladies.
"Dree put the house in our name. She said she'd recoup the money for the new house from selling the brothel, but she didn't sell it for years, and I suspect she probably only got half her money back when she finally did. Though, I didn't know it at the time. None of us had any idea how expensive that new house must have been. But we were so pleased with it," she said with a smile. "Charming it was, and beautiful. Dree had it decorated magnificently. She had come to love each and every one of us over the years and spared no expense.
"Once we were settling nicely into our new respectable lives, we suspected she might start to feel at loose ends, so we suggested she take a vacation. Have a nice long visit with her family in Spain, and maybe take a tour of the Continent or the like. It was something she hadn't been able to do while we needed her protection. She had hired a man named Cyrus to help protect us so that she could take short trips here and there over the years, but she'd never been gone for more than a couple days or a week or two before that. We felt she deserved a long vacation. So Dree decided she would go. She'd visit her family in Spain first and then perhaps take a short tour . . . but she wouldn't be gone long, she assured us. She'd come back to check on us soon."