The Favoured Child Read online

  His hand came down under my chin and lifted my face up. For no reason he squeezed my chin until I could feel the strength in his long fingers, killer’s fingers. The blood drummed in my head, but I did not speak and my grey eyes on his face never wavered.

  ‘I think I shall come to your room tonight,’ he said with a little sigh. ‘I think I should like to lie with you.’

  There were a few moments of utter silence while my reeling head tried to take in what he was saying.

  ‘You cannot!’ I said stupidly. ‘Richard! You are my brother!’

  Richard’s hand left my chin and lingered on my bare shoulder, caressing the slope of my neck, one finger negligently trailing down to touch the warm rounded top of my breast.

  ‘Oh, I don’t regard it,’ he said idly. ‘It was just something they said to frighten us.’

  ‘No,’ I said. I tried to step back, but Richard’s other arm was around my waist holding me tight beside him. ‘No, they meant it, Richard. It was the truth, I am sure of it.’

  I was still not afraid – I was too stunned to be afraid. My brother, and the killer of my mama, had me held tight to his side and was stroking my breast and my neck with confident, bloodstained fingers.

  ‘I don’t regard it,’ Richard said again. ‘I do not think we need regard it. They will not be saying it again, after all!’ He gave me one of his most charming smiles, as if that were the wittiest sally he could make, and he put one hard finger under my chin and tipped my face up to receive his kiss.

  In the pit of madness which was all that was left of my will, there was nothing to stop him. His mouth came down upon mine and I gritted my teeth to stop myself retching, and I put my hands on his waist to hold myself steady while the world reeled around me.

  ‘Whore,’ he said gently, and put me from him. ‘Go and get into bed. I shall have you tonight.’

  My will was broken and my mind was dead.

  I went up the stairs to my bedroom for there was nowhere else I could go. Jenny Hodgett undressed me in silence and looked anxiously at my face so pale that it was deathly. I slipped between the sheets of my bed and blew out my candle. Then I lay in the half-darkness with the firelight flickering on the looming furniture of the room; an owl was calling and calling outside.

  He was late coming to bed. In my strange calm state I even dozed while I waited for him. I was afraid no longer. I had lost my fear. I was not a virgin – I did not think it would hurt. I could not cry for help and shame Richard, and shame our family name, and shame myself. When he pulled the covers roughly off me, I lay as still as a corpse. Only the little hairs on my arms and my legs lifted and prickled at the cold night air. But I held still.

  The bed dipped with his weight as he came in beside me. His night-time candle showed his face still rosy and young. There was the smell of spirits on his breath – brandy. His hair smelled of cigar smoke.

  He was at a loss to know how to begin. I opened my eyes and looked at him steadily, expressionless, not moving. He fidgeted with the things on my bedside table, shifted the glass of water, knocked over the little wooden owl Ralph had given me.

  ‘D’you remember Scheherazade?’ he asked unexpectedly.

  I held my face blank, but my mind was racing.

  ‘You really loved her, didn’t you?’ he asked. His voice was a little stronger. It held some resonance of his old childhood hectoring tone. ‘You were heartbroken when she was killed, weren’t you, Julia?’

  My silence irritated him.

  ‘Weren’t you?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I was unwilling to speak and I did not know why he asked. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘You cried for her,’ Richard reminded me. ‘And yet you could never really believe that Dench had cut her.’

  I sighed. It was all such a long time ago and the losses then had been mere forerunners of what came later.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  Richard rolled on to one elbow, the better to see my face. ‘The horse was cut, then they smashed her in the face with a hammer,’ he said. ‘And Dench was sacked and had to run for his life. Remember? If Grandpa Havering had caught him, he would have had him hanged for sure.’

  ‘I remember,’ I said.

  Richard was getting excited, his eyes sparkling, his face bright. ‘It was me!’ he said exultantly. ‘All along! And none of you ever guessed. None of you ever came near to guessing. I cut Scheherazade and I made sure all the blame would fall on Dench. So that stopped you riding my horse all right! And I made sure that I would never have to ride her again, and I got rid of Dench who was ganging up with you against me. I did all of that on my own! And I made you cry for weeks, didn’t I?’

  I lay very still, trying to absorb what Richard was saying. But trying even harder to understand Richard’s sudden elation. Then he moved closer towards me and I understood. He fumbled under the covers for the hem of my shift and pulled it up. I checked my movement to grab for it and hold it down. If it came to a struggle, then Richard would win. And I knew, with some secret perverse knowledge which I did not want, that he would like to feel me fighting against him.

  ‘And the goshawk…’ Richard’s breathing was fast; he had pulled his own nightshirt out of the way and was rearing up Over me. ‘Ralph Megson’s precious goshawk. When she bated from my fist, I pulled her back. The first time it was an accident, but she made me so angry when she would not sit still. The second time I wanted to hurt her, and I knew if I pulled her hard enough and quick enough, I would break her legs. D’you remember how they went click, Julia?’

  I was sweating, and the inside of my thighs were damp. Richard pushed inexpertly towards me and put a clumsy hand down to part my legs. He clambered, impeded by the bedclothes, on top of me. He giggled like a conceited schoolboy when he pressed down and his hard flesh met mine.

  ‘But you didn’t dare touch the sheep,’ I said. I spoke almost idly. My mind and my body were numb with fear and disgust and the horror of what Richard had told me, and my acceptance as I recognized the truth at once: that I had, in some deep and guilty way, always known; that I should have said something, done something; that once again I was Richard’s unwilling accomplice.

  But the sheep had gone against him.

  ‘D’you think they knew you were bad?’ I asked.

  Richard hesitated.

  ‘They went against you,’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen sheep do such a thing. They mobbed you in the barn on the downs. D’you remember that, Richard? D’you remember how very afraid you were then?’

  ‘I wasn’t. . .’ Richard said quickly. ‘I’ve never been afraid.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you were,’ I said certainly. ‘You were afraid of Scheherazade from the moment you first saw her, and you were afraid of the sheep.’

  Richard glared at me, but he was losing his potency. I could feel his hardness melting away and I was filled with elation, with a sense of triumph.

  ‘You were scared to death of Scheherazade,’ I said. ‘That was why you cut her. Not just because you were jealous of me riding her. But you would have done anything not to ride her yourself. And the sheep were like a nightmare.’

  ‘It’s not so . . .’ he said. His eyes were sharp with dislike at my tauntings. He looked as he used to look when he was about to explode into one of his childhood rages. I knew I had defeated him and he would not touch me. But I was not ready for his instantaneous spite.

  He thrust his forefinger hard into me in a sharp jabbing movement, and I gave a muffled cry of pain and shock. The pain was sharp; it felt as if he were scratching me inside. I bit back the cry and made no sound. I shut my eyes and lay as still as a stone carving. Richard took his hand away and fumbled down to touch himself. He was starting to breathe heavily and I could feel him pulling at himself, rubbing himself against my legs.

  I opened my eyes and smiled at him. ‘It’s no good, Richard,’ I said coolly in a voice just like my mama’s when she sent him early to bed for spilling jam at the tea table. ‘It is no good.