Sins

‘But she said she loved them,’ Rose protested.

‘I don’t care what she said then; now she’s saying they aren’t right, so you’d better get over there and make sure that they are. Russell is threatening to take something off the bill in lieu of good service, and if he does it will have to come out of your wages.’

Despite the fact that the shop’s order book was always full, Ivor seemed to be continually anxious about money. Rose had heard a rumour that he was often pressed by suppliers for settlement of outstanding bills, and someone had told her that he was a heavy gambler playing for high stakes.

The last thing Rose felt like doing was going back to the Russells’. She’d thought they were going out for the evening, anyway, and she was supposed to be meeting up with Josh, but she knew she couldn’t argue with Ivor. Not in his present mood. What a Scrooge he was.

Since it was Christmas Eve it was impossible for her to find a taxi. The streets were busy with people hurrying home, and it took her nearly twenty minutes to reach the Russells’ apartment, hugging her tweed coat around herself in the cold frostiness of the evening.

The Russells’ mansion flat occupied the ground and first floors of their building. The doorman recognised Rose when she walked into the handsome hallway.

She rang the bell, relieved when the door was opened straight away. She just wanted to get this over with and be on her way. She couldn’t understand what it was Mrs Russell wanted her to apologise for, when less than an hour ago she had been saying how delighted she was.

As she stepped inside Rose didn’t wait for Mrs Russell to start her complaint, beginning quickly instead, ‘Mrs Russell—’

‘Sadly my dear wife isn’t here.’

The door swung closed, the lock clicking as Mr Russell turned the key in it and then looked tauntingly at Rose.

‘What a good employee you are, to be sure, or did dear Ivor have to insist that you came back? I confess I did rather put the pressure on him but then you see, my dear Rose, you have been rather putting the pressure on me, and that’s very naughty of you. I don’t like being toyed with. No man does, and you have most definitely been toying with me.’

Rose felt as though she had become paralysed with fear. She desperately wanted to move but somehow she couldn’t. She was too afraid, she recognised weakly. Arthur Russell had set a trap for her and she had fallen into it.

‘Ivor said that there is a problem with the new curtains,’ she croaked valiantly. ‘If you could just show me what the problem is…’

‘Oh, I’ll show you that, my little lovely, and plenty more besides, and soon there won’t be any problem at all because you are going to take it away. How many men have you had? Don’t be afraid to tell me; it won’t make any difference, I promise you.’

He was reaching for her, his breath gusting out from his loose-lipped wet mouth, hot and smelling of drink.

Rose panicked, jerking away from him, trying to evade him, but he simply laughed at her, catching hold of her wrists and holding them securely behind her back.

‘Oh, yes, let’s make it a bit more exciting, my dear.’ His hold on her wrist tightened, but in her fear Rose struggled to break free, twisting and turning frantically.

‘Defying me, eh? Well, you shall have to be punished for that.’

The flat of his hand came down hard against the side of her face with such speed and force that it jerked Rose’s head to one side, compounding her shock and pain as Arthur Russell pushed her head against the wall.

Rose had never in the whole of her life experienced physical violence; even Nanny, who had never liked her, had never allowed Emerald so much as to tug her hair. Amber and Jay did not believe in chastising their children with blows, and the shock of what was happening now was almost as painful mentally for her as it was physically. She could taste blood in her mouth, she felt dizzy and slightly sick, close to tears with disbelief and fear. She had guessed that Arthur Russell was the kind that wouldn’t think twice about forcing himself on a woman if he thought he could get away with it, but the physical violence that went with his sexual desire was alien to everything she had ever known. She had no defences against it, or its vileness. Arthur Russell was laughing, enjoying himself, as he watched her shudder when he drew gentle fingers down her bruised face and whispered lasciviously to her.

‘Ah, poor little girl, shall I kiss it better and teach you how to enjoy a real man’s passion?’

When Rose shuddered again his hand slid to her throat and gripped it. Whilst she struggled to breathe he leaned forward, pushing his body up against her, grinding its heaviness into her, his mouth at first loose and wet on hers until he started biting at her lips so that she could taste her blood.

Her arms, still held behind her back, were becoming numb. Arthur Russell slid his hand from her throat down to her breast. Rose stiffened in revulsion, unable to stop herself from crying out in horror when he ripped open the front of her blouse, and then began to toy with her breast, still thankfully covered by the brassiere and the liberty bodice which Nanny’s strict rules meant that Rose was dutifully still wearing so long after leaving the nursery because of the winter cold.

This was worse than her worst nightmare, worse than anything she could ever have imagined. Rose thought of her mother, and wondered how many times she had known what she was knowing now. Shame and despair filled her. Perhaps this was what she had been born for, perhaps it was all that she was worth, a piece of flesh to be used for a man’s pleasure, used and hurt, if that pleased him. Images of the mother she had never known filled her head, the most horrible kind of images in which her own face became that of the petrified young woman whose body was being abused. Panic gripped her, urging her not to fight but to give in because surely that way it would all be over much sooner and she would be free to escape from him–from him but never from what he wanted to do to her.

And then just when her panic was at its height and she was on the point of pleading with him to simply get it over with, the image inside her head changed and became instead that of her aunt Amber, smiling tenderly at her, holding out her hand to her, protecting her.

Arthur Russell gave a grunt of frustration at the barriers between him and his goal. ‘What the ruddy hell are you wearing?’ he demanded before starting to yank at the liberty bodice with his free hand.

Liberty bodices were, as Rose knew, anything but liberty providing, and not easily removed. He would need both hands and even then it still would not be easy. And that meant he would have to release her…

Josh had been waiting for Rose for over half an hour. She was never late. The pub was packed, it being Christmas Eve, heaving with bodies and a sense of cares being thrown aside in favour of celebrating the season. Outside it was freezing cold and he was knackered. One of his stylists had thrown a full-on dramatic hissy fit with one of the juniors on whom he also had a massive crush, and had ended up walking out, which had meant that Josh had had to take on his clients as well as his own. The air inside the pub surrounded him with a relaxing fug of warmth and cigarette smoke, making him reluctant to move from the table he had managed to bag when he had first come in.

But Rose was now very late. He knew she had been working at the Russells’ and that was enough to have his nerves firing on all cylinders. He reached for his overcoat, a new one, bespoke, made by his father’s friend Harry Cohen in his Savile Row shop. It was black and made from pure cashmere, and he’d made poor old Harry almost weep when he’d demanded that he cut it into such a narrow fit, but Josh was well pleased with the result. He was wearing handmade shoes as well–both the coat and the shoes a Christmas present to himself. The salon was starting to make proper money for him, and it would make more. Josh grinned at the pert-looking blonde eyeing him up as he squeezed past her. He liked to change his girls as regularly as he changed his shirts; that way none of them got any silly ideas about tying him down. Josh had ambitions, big ones, and they didn’t include getting married and ending up with a wife and half a dozen kids to support. He’d already started to get one or two girls coming in who hung around with the new singers and groups whose records were in the music charts, and once they’d got into the new year he intended to try to persuade Ollie to let him cut the hair of one of his many model girlfriends–one who was likely to be photographed for Vogue.

The air outside the pub was ball-shrinkingly cold, the sky clear and studded with stars. Josh knew the address of the Russells’ mansion flat. It was a good half-hour’s walk away, but there wasn’t a taxi in sight. Not that that bothered Josh. He liked a challenge. The Dorchester was the nearest posh hotel, so he headed for it, using a small rear entrance and then making his way to the foyer, strolling through it and out past the uniformed doorman, who asked politely, ‘Taxi, sir?’