Terry paused in his disgusting behaviour, and gave Tom his attention. “I don’t believe that. Didn’t you notice yesterday? When he thought she couldn’t hear, he called her his property. That’s what she means to him. One breeding machine’s as good as another. He might keep this one for fun, but there’s a chance for my Eustacia. It’s up to her what she does with it. Besides, if he does keep Rose, I’ll know I’ve been there too, every time I look at her. And so will he.”

I closed my eyes, and then opened them again. It was worse with them shut. It concentrated my attention on the senses of touch and smell. Terry’s rank body odour, together with the feel of his filthy hands on me made bile rise to my throat.

Tom moved to stand up, murder in his eyes, pushing at me to get off his lap. At the same point my body did the deed for me. I was sick, horribly sick, all over Terry and me. It happened so quickly he didn’t have time to avoid it, and I took good care to ensure he received as much as I could give him.

Norrice Terry stood up, let me fall to the floor, and cried out, “Whore! Bitch! My new leather breeches, too!” I fell in my own filth, broken, feeling I couldn’t sink much lower. He stormed out, leaving me there, and his man followed him, leaving us in the semi darkness we had become accustomed to.

“Rose!” Unhesitatingly Tom lifted me out of the mess and took me in his arms. He let me cry, and he stripped off my soiled clothing for me. I lay in his arms unresisting, sobbing my heart out. This only delayed the inevitable outcome. Terry would make it worse for me now.

By some miracle my shift had escaped the deluge. Tom pulled it up to cover me and fastened the drawstring securely. His stream of invective while he ministered to me would have shamed a sailor, but I let it wash over me. It wasn’t directed at me.

When the door opened again, I clutched Tom in alarm, but it was only one of our guards. He dumped a bowl of water down on the floor, and threw a bundle of clothes after it. “He says you’re to change,” he told us, and left. We heard the bolts shoot home, but this for once brought me relief. It meant Terry wasn’t coming back.

I blew my nose and wiped my eyes, then got up and sorted through the clothes. They were probably a maid’s by the look of them, but clean. I found an unmarked part of one of my petticoats and Tom tore it up for me to use as a washcloth.

I felt no shame when I slipped my shift over my head, but Tom turned his head away and gave me some privacy while I washed away all trace of the vomit, and what was worse, Terry’s hands. This time they had brought some soap, sweet-smelling ladies’ soap. Eustacia’s, perhaps. Among the many marks now adorning my flesh, Terry had left a thumb-shaped bruise, on the side of my left breast. I examined it and decided it wouldn’t show over my wedding gown. I no longer knew if the ceremony would take place, but I had to behave as if it would. My whole body felt as though it didn’t belong to me any more, sore from Terry’s fumbles and hurts.

Tom helped me to dress once I was in the clean shift, pulling the stay laces tight for me and fastening some of the tapes at the back. I had to instruct him, as he wasn’t at all handy with ladies’ clothes. It forced me to think of Richard again, how nimbly he could help me to dress, but I pushed the thought aside, fearing it would weaken me. Once I was decent again in the skirt and caraco jacket I’d been provided with, I sat down on the hard, wooden floor. I took down my hair and combed it until it was silky in an effort to get all traces of the man off me.

Putting myself back in order my mood changed, from black despair to cold, hard anger. If I got away, this would not go unpunished. Fury would have been easier to cope with; this went deeper, searing its way through to an unbreakable resolution.

Tom had not ventured to speak for a while; probably trying to get back his equilibrium. When he did, he sounded colder than I’d ever heard him, even angrier than he’d been before. “When we’re out of this, I’ll kill him.”

I’d already made up my mind to it. “No, I will. No one will look at me and gloat like he’ll be able to.”

“Do you want Lord Strang to know? I won’t tell him if you don’t want me to.” I stared at Tom, realising how far away he was from understanding. There was no point in arguing. He had never heard me like that, because I could never remember being so shaky, so upset, or so determined.

“Yes. He has to know.”

“Won’t it—won’t he feel—”

“Soiled goods? I hope not. I’ll take the chance. There’ll be nothing between us, no secrets. We promised.” I couldn’t live with that locked inside me, it would have been a betrayal.

Tom paused, biting his lip. “You know what Terry said—about you—” He broke off. “Never mind.”

“I won’t have to, will I?” I snapped, still angry. “It seems the whole world and his wife knows something that is no business of anyone else’s. Yes, I’m Richard’s mistress, I’ve been his mistress for the past six months.”